


Met by Moonlight

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Endgame Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, England (Country), F/M, Grad School AU, Rekindled love, lots of english references, slight elsa/mulan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-05-15 21:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14798510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: On her 25th birthday, Emma Swan decides that it is finally time to leave Storybrooke for the first time in her life. Her blogging job with the New York Times has found her a grad school position that she cannot turn down - but it is at the University of Oxford in England. She accepts, knowing it is a once-in-a-lifetime offer, and packs her bag, heading for her new life. But what she finds is not new, but Killian Jones, an old boyfriend, one she broke up with when she was too scared to leave Storybrooke with him four years before. Now, he is back in her life, not only studying Shakespeare with her at Oxford, but living in the same flat set up by the program. CURRENTLY ON HIATUS





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The course of true love never did run smooth.  
> \-- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream | Act 1, Scene 1

Her whole life, Emma has only known one thing: Storybrooke. Since the day she was born in Storybrooke General, the daughter of David and Mary Margaret Nolan, police chief and kindergarten teacher, respectively, she has barely gone past the town lines.

The farthest she has ever been was to a high school field trip to Maine’s capital city, Augusta.

Elementary school, high school, and even college - all within the town lines.

Meeting friends, birthday parties, funerals, graduations - all without leaving Storybrooke.

Her first kiss was on the playground behind the library when she was thirteen.

And when she was fifteen, all she had to do was take one look at the new student, the tall, dark-haired boy who just joined her English class, and she felt her heart flutter, her first love, found right here in Storybrooke. With all the luck in the world, he happened to like her back, and he is in Maine for just three weeks before their first kiss, sitting at the harbor, telling her of the stars.

She is there to console him when his older brother and best friend, Liam, reveals that he has joined the navy, leaving just a few short weeks later for training.

He is there to comfort her when her parents announce that they are having another baby, even though she is eighteen. He is the only person that knows of her anger towards them, an anger that even she cannot understand, but she tells him nonetheless.

He is her first love, and somehow, they stay together. In their senior yearbook, they are deemed the “cutest couple,” and when they move into an apartment closer to the college (and away from their parents), Emma is sure that Killian Jones is going to be the man she marries one day. Killian stays with her when his parents move to Boston to open another restaurant. Their college careers are similar, with her studying journalism and him studying English literature.

Emma is happy.

And then, Killian gets an offer from his parents. His father finds him a job to curate the newest museum opening in New York City, a literature-focused research library funded by the city. Emma knows it is a power move, a very pointed offer from Brennan to have his son back under his thumb, but Killian does not seem to care.

Until Emma says she cannot come with him. She knows she is being selfish, making him choose between her and his father’s empire, but she is not ready to leave Storybrooke, to leave behind everything she knows.

To leave behind her safety, her comfort, and her family.

She hates herself for making him choose. And, deep down inside, when he chooses New York, she even hates him a little bit. Hates him for making her break his heart. Hates him for not choosing _her_ , though she would never tell anyone that.

And for a while, Emma is terribly, uncontrollably _sad._ She moves back home with her parents and her toddler brother, Neal. She refuses to think about her future, at least for a little while.

 

_“Us Nolan women have always loved hard, Emma. And it’s never a bad thing, until we are broken. Just give yourself time, and you will heal.”_

_“Promise?”_

_“I promise.”_

 

She does heal. It takes time, and it takes work, but it happens. Slowly, Emma opens herself up again. She starts her own blog, reviewing books - and soon, she is offered a job from the New York Times, a job that does not require her to leave the comfort of Storybrooke.

She goes on dates, though meeting new people is not the easiest thing when you never leave the town you grew up in. Some of them go okay, finding people she hasn’t spoken to since high school, but it is when she realizes that the man across the table from her is none other than Neal Cassidy, the first boy she ever kissed on the playground when she was thirteen that she decides it might be time for her to find something else - _somewhere_ else. So she starts looking at jobs outside of Storybrooke, reaches out to some of the people she works for, and they find her something, an opportunity that she knows is exactly what she has been waiting for.

And now she is twenty-five. Sitting next to her father at the bar, both of them slowly nursing pints of beer - a situation she never thought she would be in - she starts talking and cannot stop.

“The _Times_ found me a job, and I’ve accepted it.”

“Well, that’s great, Emma! Your mother will be so proud of you!”

“It’s in England.”

Her father’s smile quickly disappears, his eyes trying to find something in hers.

“England. Hm.”

“I leave in January to start at the beginning of the spring semester.”

“January? That only gives us two months!”

“I know, dad, and I’m sorry I haven’t told you sooner. It’s just - I’m scared, worried, nervous, but I know that this is what I need to do.”

“Of course. If you’re sure this is what you want, you know your mother and I will be by your side through it all.” Emma just smiles at him, and they both take a quick sip of their beers. “What will you be doing?”

“I’ll be the, uh, research assistant and social media manager for the contemporary English program at Oxford.”

Now it’s David’s turn to smile at her. “Not gonna lie, princess, I don’t know what half of those words mean, but it sure sounds pretty important.”

“I don’t know how to tell mom.”

“Is that the only reason you wanted to come out with me tonight? For my help with telling mom?”

“Not the _only_ reason.” She smirks over her glass, finishing the rest of her beer.


	2. Chapter 1: Emma

As she hands her passport to the attendant, her hands are shaking. The older woman smiles warmly at her.

“No need to be nervous, dear,” she says. “Everyone needs to leave home at some point.”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve done this for a long time. You can always tell the ones who are leaving the nest.”

Emma smiles up at her, at a loss for words, and the woman returns her smile and her passport.

“Good luck, my dear. I hope England is as good to you as it was to me when I was your age.”

“Thank you.”

But her hands are still shaking as she walks to the plane and finds her seat, her heart pounding in her chest. She puts in her headphones, not listening to any music but just keeping her mind focused on her breath. She does not know how long it is, but when she opens her eyes, they are in the air.

The woman to her right must feel her move for the first time since she took her seat, and she smiles at Emma as she takes out her headphones. She is gorgeous, with long, dark curls and pale blue eyes, a simple black Blazer worn over a bright yellow shirt covered in roses and black dress pants.

“This your first flight, love?” Her voice is thick with an Australian accent, something Emma had only ever heard on TV before, but something about her is warm and comforting.

“Is it that obvious?” Emma tries to smile back, but she can muster no more than just the faint traces of one.

“I’ve been on a good number of these buggers, and it’s usually not that hard to spot a novice. But a twelve-hour flight is a bit of a wanker to start with.”

“I didn’t really have time to take a trial run.”

“Are you going anywhere beyond England?”

“No, I, uh - London is my final destination. Oxford, actually.”

“Well, that’s a brilliant coincidence, then. I’m on my way to Oxford, too. On my way back, for what feels like the hundredth time. I’m the head librarian for the English department.”

This time, Emma cannot stop the smile from spreading across her face. “Well, I’m your newest graduate assistant, the social media manager.”

“Right, right. Emma, is it? I was impressed with your blog.”

“You - you read my blog?”

“Of course I did. I needed some basis for hiring you beyond your resume, didn't I?”

Emma feels the blood rush to her face, her pounding heart from the flight not helping slow it.

“Besides, it's not every day that you get an application with editors of the New York Times as your references. Impressive.”

“Well, thank you, Miss…”

“French. Belle French. But please, call me Belle.”

“But you're going to be my boss,” she says curtly, remembering everything her father taught her about respect.

“And as your boss, I'm telling you to call me Belle.”

“Alright. Belle.”

A beat passes between them before Belle asks, “So, what made you choose Oxford? Not that I'm complaining, but I like to know what about the school appealed to my students.”

“Actually, I chose it because it was the farthest away from home. I spent my whole life in the town I grew up in, and I decided that for grad school, I would go as far away as I could. So when I got the offer from Oxford - from you - I knew it was the one I was going to take. It took my parents a bit to warm up to the decision, but there's not much they could do to stop their 25 year old daughter from finally leaving the nest.”

“That explains the nervousness. What are your specializing in?”

“Contemporary fiction. There are so many scholars who study Shakespeare and the Victorian era and the classics, so I decided to go with something different.”

“I understand that. My masters was in the history of fairy tales.”

“That's definitely different. Not to mention interesting.”

“Well, it might not be as flashy as contemporary, but I hope you at least consider taking my class.”

Emma does not realize it at the time, but she has stopped shaking her leg, and her hands have released the fists they were holding since she sat in her seat. Belle reminds her of her mother - the same warm, welcoming personality, the same excitement towards helping people - and it has made her nervousness almost disappear.

They do not talk the whole flight, only for parts of it, and Emma falls asleep for a few hours in the middle, but by the time they land, Emma is thankful for her, and for the fears she helped subside. Belle was right: a twelve hour flight is a lot to handle for a first-timer, and it is only with the help of her new friend (and her boss) that she gets through it with enough confidence to at least _consider_ returning back to Maine at some point.

 

When the plane finally lands in England, Belle turns to her again, her pile of paperwork in her hand.

“Do you know where you’re going, love?”

“Well, through customs, but I have my passport and all the paperwork for my visa - “

“No, no, after that. Do you know where you’re going once you get out of the airport?”

“Oh, uh, they told me that someone else in the grad program was going to meet me there and take me to the apartment we’re staying in.”

“Flat.”

“What?” Emma asks, but Belle just smiles.

“Over here, they’re called flats. Just trying to help you fit in.”

“Well, I appreciate that.”

“Did they tell you who will be picking you up?”

“Uh, no. All the email said was that they would have my name, I’m assuming like one of those cheesy scenes in the movies where they have someone’s name written on cardboard, but I really have no idea what to expect.”

The people in front of them begin stirring, taking their carry-on bags from overhead and hoisting them over their shoulders, shuffling the papers in their hands.  

“It’ll probably be August. He’s the most responsible of the group. Or Wendy, that sweetheart.”

“I can’t wait to meet them all.”

“From what you’ve told me, I don’t think you’ll have a problem fitting in at all.” The rows before them start to move down the aisle, but Belle tries her best not to get separated from Emma, hoping to help her through the airport that she has come to know like the back of her hand, flying in and out of it for almost fifteen years just for academia, not to mention the countless trips she made as a child and teenager before she decided to attend Oxford herself. “August has the same focus I did in my graduate studies, though he does a lot more work with how they are still affecting society today, which is something I never got in to. And Wendy, she’s a classics girl, especially those Victorian women - Austen, the Brownings, though most of her work is done on the Bronte sisters. And then there’s Mister Jones, our Shakespearean scholar. Can barely toss a rock on campus without finding someone who says they want to study Shakespeare, though even I have trouble finding someone with as much passion for the bard as he does.”

And with that, they are off the plane and into the airport, Emma’s feet back on the solid ground she has been craving for twelve hours.

But even the ground in England feels different, different than her American soil, though she may not be able to figure out just what it might be. When Belle points her towards the customs counter, she knows this is it - this is where they must part ways, though she is still surprised when the woman pulls her in for a hug.

“I’m so glad I met you, Emma! I’ll see you on campus before you know it. Besides, orientation for the library office is Thursday morning, and classes start on Tuesday. Good luck, love.”

“Thank you, Belle. I’ll see you Thursday, if not before.”

The hug ends, and they head in their opposite directions, but Emma can feel Belle’s eyes on her as she makes her way towards the counter.

Despite her anxiety about it, the paperwork is harmless, taking far less time than Emma envisioned, though she did already have all of the paperwork done. The woman behind the counter smiles as she hands her papers back, plus her student visa, and Emma is on her way again, looking around the large waiting room for someone holding a sign with her name on it.

She does not find the sign; instead, she finds the bright blue eyes that she has spent years trying to get out of her mind, remove him from her memories altogether to forget about the heartbreak that she caused both of them. It is not until she sees him that she even thinks about what Belle said to her as they were getting off the plane: Mister Jones, the Shakespeare scholar. She had thought nothing of it then - Jones is a common enough last name, and she’s going to school in England, so of course there are people who study the most popular playwright in the whole world, that so happened to come from their city.

But it’s not just any Mister Jones. Of course it isn’t.

No, it’s _Killian_ Jones.


	3. Chapter 2: Killian

When he sees her, he cannot believe his eyes. It’s been four years since he tried not to watch her as he drove away, his whole life packed in the back of his Chevelle, since he watched the tears rolling down her face in his rear-view mirror.

Since she broke his heart, too afraid to join him in New York City. He loved her with every piece of himself, and it was a pain that he has never been able to separate him from completely, though he tried to find healing at the bottom of too many bottles of rum to count, and with every woman that threw herself his way. He never let himself get as attached as he had to Emma, the past four years a string of one-night stands and fiercely physical flings that he thought had at least bandaged the hole in his heart that Emma left.

He accepted the research position in England because he thought it would give him a fresh start - and because Liam chose to come back to their home.

But as he sits at the airport, his heart pounding too fast for him to even focus on the book between his hands, he had convinced himself that it could not be her, that there had to be another Emma Swan somewhere in America that happened to be coming to the same university as him. 

Boy, was he wrong. 

He sees her long before she sees him - she is still going through customs, filling out her student visa paperwork, but once his eyes find her, he cannot tear them away. Without needing to look down, he finds the spot in his left arm just below his watch, the large black star tattoo hidden in the pattern of his sleeve - the same tattoo Emma has, in the same place, one of his first drunken decisions made in the first weeks of his stay in New York. He can’t stop himself from thinking about just how gorgeous she is - she  _ still  _ is. Her hair is still the same loose golden curls that it was, only cut shorter than he remembers, just touching the shoulders of her red leather jacket. She is dressed to travel, in dark jeans and a light grey tee shirt, the same wardrobe he remembers her having before he left.

When she is finished at the counter, she takes the pile of paperwork and slides it into the front of her laptop bag, finally looking up towards the sitting area, and after a moment, her eyes meet his, growing wide. 

Before he can stop himself, he is out of the chair and filling the space between them, his hands wringing the paperback in his hands. “Emma,” he breathes, feeling her name on his lips after so long. “How - how are you? Welcome to London.”

When Emma smiles at him, the perfect smile that he fell in love with years ago, he feels his heart in his throat and all of his thoughts have disappeared except for just how  _ damned gorgeous  _ she still is. 

“Thanks. I’m, uh - I’m good. A little nervous, but excited.” Needing to do something, he takes her suitcase from her hands and starts to lead her towards the exit.

“Rightfully. But your plane ride was acceptable? I hope your seatmates were alright. I remember my first flight, I was between Liam and this older woman who smelled painfully like baby powder and it gave me the worst headache.”  _ Gods,  _ he hated how he rambles when he’s nervous. 

“They were more than alright, actually. Well,  _ she _ . There was only one, since dad chipped in a little extra for me to get a window seat. But somehow I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that I would be spending a lot of time with here.” 

This grab’s Killian’s attention, and he snaps his head towards her as the automatic doors open before them, immediately swamping them with the hot, humid air. 

“Who… who was it?”

When she turns to him and smiles, he feels the breath leave his lungs, suddenly afraid that he may never be able to breathe again. “She’s the head librarian, or something like that. Belle?”

“Ah, yes. Miss French. She’s truly something, isn’t she? She’d never tell you herself, but she’s the youngest head of a department in the history of Oxford.”

“Why won’t she tell anyone? That’s, like, the coolest damn thing ever. I would tell everyone.”

“I know, but she’s not one to brag. But the flight went well?”

“I mean, I guess so? I don’t have anything to compare it to, so…”

“That was your first flight? Twelve hours, from Maine to London?”

“I know, I know, but I made it here, didn’t I?”

“Aye, love, that you did.”

A few moments of silence pass between them, but neither of them really seem to care, since neither of them can come up with anything else to say. 

Shifting her backpack to her other shoulder, they cross the road to the visitors parking lot, and without even thinking, she begins to scan the parking lot  for the dark metallic flake of the Chevelle that she remembers so well, and is surprised when Killian stops dead in front of her, opening the back of a dark blue hatchback car, some brand that she had never heard of before. 

“This is - this is your car?” she asks, but the sense of surprise in her voice simply confuses him. 

“Yes?”

“What happened to the Chevelle?”

And then, just like that, Killian is barraged with the very stream of memories that have taken all his energy over the past four years to lock away somewhere inside him, away from even his deepest dreams, out of his own reach in hopes of saving the little bit of his heart that had not shattered to pieces - but, more than that, there was the sudden realization that she remembers it, too, and that must mean that she remembers everything that came with it, has not repressed the memory of him in the same way he has tried to bury her deep in the darkness within him. It floods him all at once, every moment of their relationship spent in the Chevelle, from the first time he picked her up in it to the moment she disappeared from her rear view window - and just like that, his heart is broken again. 

Her hand on his back pulls him back to the present. “Killian?”

“I, uh - what?”

“The Chevelle. What happened to the Chevelle?”

“Oh, well, you know, cars are made differently here, and they drive on the other side of the road, plus the roads themselves are actually much smaller here, so it was more of a hassle having it then anything, really.” He hoists her small suitcase into the back of the car, closing the hatchback behind it, but something tells him that he was not quick enough to hide what lies in the back of the car, a secret that he, for some reason, is not quite ready to spill to her.

But when she asks, “What happened to it?”, he knows that either she did not see it, or the piles of paints and canvases did not register with her. 

“It's in Liam's garage at his house on the base. All he rides anywhere is his motorcycle anyway, so he let me park her in there for safekeeping.”

Killian climbs into the driver's seat of the hatchback, watching Emma out of the corner of his eye as he sets his phone GPS to return him to familiar territory. He's driven to London more than a few times, and to Liam’s base more than that, but it's the navigation of the damned airport that gets him every time - something he learned the hard way when he had to pick Jefferson up from the airport last winter, which is a story he hopes he stops hearing soon. She is every bit as gorgeous as he remembers, but being able to see her outside of a memory still feels ethereal, like if he were to reach out and touch her she would disappear from before him. 

“How far from the college is his base?” she asks once she is settled in, her backpack sitting at her feet, out of which she has procured a pair of sunglasses. “Do you get to see him often?”

He feels the corner of his mouth slide up into a smile when he thinks about his brother, someone that he has waited so long to be close enough to for his answer to be true. “As long as he's not working, I drive every Saturday to meet him for lunch. It's actually how I ended up here in the first place - I was already headed in this direction, so it just made sense for me to make the rest of the journey to pick you up from the airport.”

“So then how far are we from the University?”

“About an hour and a half,” he says, pulling out of the parking spot and finally starting their journey.

“Your GPS says it's only twenty minutes.”

“No, love, that's twenty minutes until I know where I am. It's getting away from the airport that's the real trick.” 

Nodding, Emma accepts this answer and smiles softly to herself, remembering her father saying almost the same words on the ride to the airport in Maine:  _ “They make it so damned difficult to navigate these places, as if they never want you to leave. Getting here is one thing, but once it's time to leave, you have to be a real magician to get it right the first time.” _

“How are your parents? And your brother?” His question pulls her back to England, almost as if he could tell she was thinking about her father.

“Neal turns eight soon, actually. Spitting image of his father, though, and acts just like him, too. And my parents are good. They just celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the day dad joined the force, and I realized just how  _ old  _ I am, because I remember that day. And mom's still teaching, though dad and I both think she'll spend the rest of her life in the classroom, even if it means you'll have to drag her from it on her dying day.”

“That sure does sound like your mother.”

“And how are your parents?” He hopes that she cannot tell the flash of pain that just crossed his face, a dagger of ice to his heart - and though he knows she had no intention of it, even just mentioning his parents floods him with anger. 

“Mum's good. She calls me every few days from somewhere in the Carolinas, where their newest restaurant is. That makes six now, all along the Eastern seaboard, and insists on writing me letters and sending me postcards, so I try to do the same. But dad and I - well, he hasn't spoken to me since I told him I was leaving New York for here in August. He may never forgive me for giving up the job in the library that he apparently had to coax a lot of people to get anyway, and living close enough to them to have freedom while still needing to be under the thumb of Brennan Jones was more terrible than anything you could probably imagine.” Much to his surprise, he feels the warmth of her hand cover his on the shifter between them, though only for a moment - but that moment was enough to take every but of air out of his lungs, to stop his heart from beating for just long enough to matter.

“Then how did you get here?”

“Last September, Liam got his orders changed from Florida to England, per his request. I thought about it for weeks, did a lot of research, and decided it was time to go for my masters, especially since England is the best place to study Shakespeare anyway. I applied to all of the colleges around here, and when I got the letter from Oxford saying I'd been accepted, well, I knew that was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Took mum a few weeks to warm up to the idea of me leaving  _ again _ , but she understood that it was the best thing for me, even if dad could never accept it.”

“So does that mean he’s… he’s no longer supporting you?”

Killian can’t stop the laugh that escapes his lips. 

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“No one goes against the orders of Brennan Jones without suffering the consequences of it. My consequence is that he’s stopped sending me money, but if that’s the price I have to pay for finally following my own bloody dreams instead of his, I’ll take it.”

“He’s still the same bastard he’s always been, then?”

“Aye, love. That he is.” 

He turns to her for a moment, taking advantage of a stoplight, and sees the smile that spread across his face with her question mirrored on her own, and a beat passes between them. 

“But you’re back with Liam, which is all you’ve ever wanted, right? Oxford is becoming everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”

“Aye, it’s getting there.” He wants nothing more than to turn to her, to keep his eyes on her until he updates the memory of her face in his mind, but all he can do with the moment he has is take a quick glance towards her, and he’s glad to find her looking towards the road, and not him - because if he were to meet her shining green eyes with his confession, he’s not sure that he would ever be able to look away.


	4. Chapter Three: Emma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this one took so long; life blindsighted me and it's taken me this long to get back on track. The next one should be up within a week!

Her new housemates barely give her any time to unpack or settle before they are pulling her out of the house for food.

“Come on, we know you must be hungry!” The tall girl with the dark hair and midriff-revealing shirt takes her by the hand, practically pulling her out door, the other two girls taking up the rear, with the three boys shuffling behind them awkwardly.

When they finally reached the apartment - _the flat_ \- Emma was surprised to find five faces there waiting for her, since she figured the apartment would have three bedrooms maximum, though there was no real reason behind that thought. But, as it turns out, she was correct, and there were actually _two_ apartments for graduate students on opposite sides of the same hallway, for both history and English students. Hers was a four-bedroom one, shared with Killian, the tallest girl (Ruby? She’s pretty sure her name was Ruby.) and a quiet, mysterious blue-eyed boy who had not yet had the opportunity to introduce himself. On the other side of the hallway was a very tall, skinny boy with pale eyes and crazy dark hair sticking up in all directions; and two other girls, a blonde and a redhead, who have done nothing but smile at her since she’s arrived.

“I mean, I _am_ hungry, but we don’t - you don’t all have to stop what you’re doing to take me out - “

“It’s a tradition, sweetie,” she argues, not giving up the fight, and when Emma turns around to lock eyes with Killian, all he can do is shrug, flashing a quick smile at her. “We always go out for pizza when we get a new roommate. It’s just what we _do_!”

“Well, if it’s a tradition…” Emma starts, and when she stops fighting against Ruby’s grip, she turns and smiles at her, a beaming smile that changes her whole face, lighting it up, and it’s a smile that Emma can’t help but return.

“I know that we’re so excited to have another girl in the house! There was another guy here last semester, Isaac, but he was quiet and awkward and, honestly, there was something about him that just creeped me out a little bit.”

“Me too,” the blonde behind her quips in, and as she continues, Emma realizes that she, too, has an accent, like Killian. “I try my best not to judge people, but he was just really weird. I was kind of relieved when he transferred, actually, because I knew he wouldn’t be living with us anymore.”

“I was just worried that we were going to get someone _weirder_ than he was!” The redhead comments, and Emma turns in time to watch Killian clap her on the shoulder.

“Well, love, you don’t have to worry about that. Unless something drastic’s changed in the past few years, Emma is definitely not weirder than Isaac was. “

“Wait, do you know each other?” Ruby asks, turning around and walking backwards to face the group.

Before Emma can answer, Killian says,“Yeah, Emma and I went to school together back in Maine.”

Her eyes go wide, but she is not the only one to respond. “No way! That’s so weird.”

“Did you know it was her when you got the paperwork?”

“Were you guys, like, friends?”

For some reason, Emma isn’t quite ready to reveal their past to all of her new roommates, and a quick, terrified glance from Killian lets her know that he feels the same.

“All the paperwork said was her name and the terminal she’d be in. I thought it might be her at first, because we were friends, though I figured it couldn’t be, because what are the odds?”

“There’s only, what, a thousand people in Storybrooke, so the fact that we’re both from there and ended up here, in the same program, at the same time is crazy.”

Confused, the redhead turns to Killian. “Wait, I thought you said you were from England?”

“I was born in England, aye, but we moved to Maine when I was a boy. My parents are still over there, though my brother and I both returned.”

“Right. I remember you saying something about that before.”

Ahead of her, Ruby pulls open the door to a small pizzeria, gesturing for Emma to go first, though the blonde passes her and leads them towards a larger table in the back of the restaurant.

“Hello, hello!” A voice from the back calls to them, and out of the swinging doors comes a large, bearded man who can’t be much older than they are, wearing an apron over a bright green tee-shirt and jeans.

As they all find their seats, Emma between Killian and Ruby, her companions respond with a smattering of hellos, and she learns that the man’s name is Anton.

“This must be the new roommate!” he says excitedly as he approaches the table. “Welcome to Oxford! I’m Anton.”

“Emma,” she says, and takes his outstretched hand in her own.

“It’s a pleasure.”

She smiles back at him, but one of the boys says, “We’ll take our usual, please,” and Anton nods, bows his head towards her, and is off.

“So, Emma, tell us about yourself,” the redhead says excitedly, but all Emma can do is blush before Killian speaks up.

“Come on, Ariel, that’s not fair putting her on the spot like that.”

Ariel pouts, but the blonde says, “Well, then, let’s all introduce ourselves instead.”

“Aye, that sounds better.” Emma turns to him, the corner of her cheek turning up in a small, thankful smile, and he does the same, though quickly looks away.

“I’m Wendy Darling, starting my third semester of grad school, originally from London, and I focus on female Victorian writers.”

The redhead - Ariel - is next. “I’m Ariel, this will be my second semester, and I’m studying the history of modern human exploration, specifically the oceans, but also the rainforests, desert, and Arctic and Antarctic regions.”

One of the two boys speaks up, the one that is in the same apartment as her. “I’m August, I’m technically in my fifth semester of graduate studies since I’m doing a teaching fellowship and finishing my thesis on the history of fairy tales and how they’ve affected us as a society.”

“Jefferson. I’ve stopped counting semesters, because my masters will be in the portrayal of mental illness in classic literature, but I’m also simultaneously going for my doctorate in psychology, so I’ve been here for… four years? And I have another three left.”

Clapping him on the shoulder, as if proud, Killian smiles at him before introducing himself, which Emma thinks is sort of funny since she’s known him since she was fifteen, but she lets him continue. “Killian Jones, though you already know that. And this is my second semester, and my concentration is in the tragedies of Shakespeare.”

Passing right over Emma, Ruby takes her turn. “I’m Ruby Lucas, this is my fourth and final - “ she crosses her fingers in front of her, closing her eyes for a moment before continuing, “-semester, and my concentration is in mythological fantasy and the use of supernatural creatures.”

And then, they all turn to her. She has no reason to be as nervous as she is, but that doesn’t stop her from doing just that, and she takes a deep breath before starting. “Okay, well, I’m Emma Swan. This is, uh, my first semester, obviously, and my concentration will be in some sort of contemporary fiction, though I haven’t quite decided what yet. Probably detective fiction and murder mystery and how we, as a culture, have become enamored with death and whodunnit stories and things like that, but I…” She realizes that she has turned her gaze down to her hands, and when she looks back up, she finds all of her companions are still looking at her, waiting for the end of her rambling speech. “I’m not sure,” she finishes, her voice soft.

There are nods and hums of approval around the table, and of all the people around her, she finds her eyes drawn to the bright blue eyes across the table from her - August, the fairy tales studier that Belle told her about, and when he meets her eyes with his, he flashes her a smile that is almost too perfect to be real.

She does not want to already be attracted to someone; she just got off the plane earlier today, but she cannot ignore the blazing look behind August’s blue eyes, especially as the night goes on and she continues to find him watching her, his lips curling into a sweet smile when her eyes meet his.

Maybe England will be even more of an adventure than she imagined.

 

She only has two days to acclimate herself with the town before she receives the email from Belle:

> _Lovelies,_
> 
> _Given all the bloody renovation done over break to both the library and our lovely building, I am going to have to ask all of you to shorten your time off by a few days - everything is a little out of place right now, and I would like to have it all put back together by the time classes start. No need for formalities the first few days, just show up ready to kick our bloody buildings back into shape! If you’re already in town, I would like to start tomorrow (and obviously I will be providing lunch, because that’s the only way to make you wankers work!); if you’re not in town, get your arses here and help us!_
> 
> _See you all soon!_
> 
> _Belle_

 

So the next morning, clad in jeans, boots, and a plain white tee shirt, they convene in the kitchen of their small apartment, and when they begin their descent to Killian’s car on the street in front of the building, they find the two girls from across the hall also on their way out, arms linked together as they head down the street.

The library, she discovers upon walking through the beautifully hand-carved doors, is greater than anything she had ever even imagined, more beautifully rustic and antique than any of the pictures she spent hours mulling over--dreaming about--made it seem. Killian either senses her awe of the building, or expects it, for even though he is a few steps in front of her, he turns around as she takes it all it, his eyes fixed on her as hers jump around the room.

“Better than you imagined, eh?”

“Definitely.”

Her eyes finally meet his, a smile equivalent to hers spread across his face - a smile that she remembers so well from the days she used to spend with him - and a smile that she is still not sure about how she feels having it back in her life.

But, in truth, the library really is better than anything she imagined. There are books _everywhere_ : organized on shelves, piled on tables, stacked on carts - chaos.

It does not take them long to find Belle, standing in the most open part of the first floor, looking angrily around at the piles spread around her, a clipboard in her hand which she continues to scrawl on as they approach.

“Right, so this is bloody worse than I figured it would be, and I’m damned sure it wasn’t this bad when I was here two days ago,” she says as they approach, not even looking in their direction. “They’re piled in bleeding boxes upstairs, so we all most definitely have our work cut out for us! Booth, can you take our newest member for a quick tour of the building, show her where her office is going to be, and then start with the boxes upstairs?” Emma turns to August, who smiles gently at her before he turns back to Belle.

“Of course, it would be my pleasure.”

He gestures for her to go first, around the tables gathered in the center of the room and up the stairs.

“So, you’re from Maine then, same as Killian?” he asks when they are out of earshot of the rest of the group.

“Uh, yeah. He was, uh, sixteen and I was fifteen when he moved from England and joined my class. Are you from somewhere there, too? In the states?”

“Yeah, somewhere over there,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. “But nowhere in particular. I was an orphan growing up, most of my time spent somewhere near California, New Mexico, Arizona. Have you ever been to Arizona?”

She blushes a little, glad that she is on the steps in front of him so he cannot see her reddening face. “I, uh, never had the pleasure. To be honest, the first time I even left Maine was when the plane took off the runway.”

“I guess that’s one of the few perks of not having any roots, then. You don’t have that same tie to somewhere, nothing keeping you from just up and leaving.”

She is surprised by his sudden personal outbreak, but she also sees his point. She doesn’t know what exactly draws the next words from her, but once they come, there is nothing she can do to stop them: “I had opportunities to leave, but I just--I never wanted to, until one day I realized I hadn’t and needed to. And that’s why I’m here.”

She stops at one of the tables near the top of the steps, only to allow him to take the lead and show her where she needs to go, but he stops as well, leaning against the table. When he smiles at her, she can feel her heart fluttering in her chest, something she has not felt in what feels like years, and it awakens some sort of giddy-schoolgirl vibe within her--and she suddenly finds herself clinging onto his every movement, his every word.

“Well, I know for sure I’m glad you’re here, Emma.”

“I’m glad to be here,” she answers, her chest tight, though thankfully he does not stay by the tables for very long. Instead, he removes his jacket and sets it on one of the chairs, pushing up the sleeves of his long-sleeve shirt, and heads away from her.

“Let’s see the shape your office is in, then, shall we?”

Given the state of the library, Emma shouldn’t be surprised at the equally chaotic state of the office, but surprised she is. She can tell that, under the piles and boxes and carts full of books, the office is in great condition: two desks, both up against a large glass wall that looks out over the floor of the library, the back wall covered floor-to-ceiling with a large wooden bookshelf that sits mostly empty.

“So, this will be your new home for the next few years, Emma,” August says, sweeping his arms in a grand gesture around the room. “Though I’m sure by the time classes start up and you actually need to start using it, it will be in much better shape than it is now, especially knowing your office mate.”

“My office mate?”

As if on cue, a tall girl with hair too blonde to even be classified as blonde (but would calling it white even do it justice? Instead, it seems to be some crazy shade of platinum/silver that shimmers even in the shitty lighting of the office) walks in, a pure white backpack hoisted over her shoulder, which she promptly tosses on the floor beside one of the desks.

“You must be Emma!” she says with a smile that Emma’s pretty sure makes the room physically brighter--a contagious one Emma can’t keep herself from returning. “I’m Elsa, and I’m so excited to be working with you!” She, too, has an accent, but it is not as refined as Killian and Wendy’s. She makes a mental note to ask about it later, but for now, they have work to do.

“Elsa is our poster child for the graduate department,” August teases, but it doesn’t seem to phase her, just pulls a smile on her face.

“There’s nothing wrong with being where you are, August,” she retorts, rolling her eyes, and then looks around the room. “They definitely made sure we had our work cut out for us, then, didn’t they?”

“It sure does seem that way.”

And, just like that, as if someone suddenly flipped a switch in her, turning her on and sending her off. Telling Emma which box should be next and commanding August to carry them to the right parts of the library, Elsa works like a machine, putting everything in the office back in order.

Emma only wishes she could do the same with her life.


	5. Chapter 4: Killian

It's only day one and he is already exhausted. He spent most of his day in the office in the English building, trying to get everything back into working order. Even starting a few days ahead of classes was not enough to get them caught up enough to hide the chaos that took place over the break, and he spent most of his day hauling boxes to and from the storage room--when he was given enough time to himself to get there and back without being stopped by someone.

He has always known about the curse the world laid upon him: the curse of being devastatingly handsome, and the curse of always being approached by this damned mysterious other sex, especially at times when he just wants to be left to his ways.

During yet another trip down the bland neutral hallway, he wonders if she knows.  If she knows that he never stopped loving her (apparently), no matter how hard he has tried. If she knows the pain that he feels every time he lays his eyes on her, having her here with him again but not being able to have her.

If she knows about the piercing icicle that went through his heart when she saw them at the table in the apartment, sitting right up against each other. He could sense the electricity in the room - and sense that he was not welcome - so he locked himself in his room with his worn-down copy of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and a bottle of rum.

If she knows how much it hurt to hear her giggling like a schoolgirl at him at that very same table the very next night, or when he got home the following night and they were curled on the couch together, his arm over her shoulders and her hand resting gently on his thigh.

Damn that August Booth to the depths.

As he collapses into one of the new chairs on the first floor of the library, he is cursing himself and not August. He should have _told_ her. He should have rushed into her arms the moment she saw him in that damned airport and told her that he never stopped loving her, not for a moment of the years that have passed between them since she left him alone and broken.

He had every opportunity to tell her, yet he hadn't taken any of them. He has no one to blame but himself - but that doesn't mean he can't be at least a _little_ spiteful towards August. His head in his hands, he runs his fingers through his hair, then lets out a deep breath. He may have spent much of the last two weeks in this very building, but he takes a good look around for the first time. With all the work he knew they were doing, not much looks different. Sure, many of the bookshelves were replaced, along with some of the windows, but the main difference is the furniture. The tables that take up much of the middle of the room seem to be the same, but the rest of it all: the chairs around the tables, the couches spread out by the windows, and the armchairs like the one in which he currently sitting scattered around the room, are all much more modern than the bulky, uncomfortable ones that he remembers from the years prior. The one he found himself in is set into the corner by the windows, with a good view of most of the first floor, plus some of the second. With his eyes scanning the library, he is surprised by just how few people are here, even for the first day of classes. Usually, even on the slowest days, there is at least a general hustle and bustle going on in the building, but there does not even seem to be that. Much of what he can see is empty: no books and papers scattered on the tables, no students with headphones in crowding the computers, and not even people wandering through the shelves of books, searching for something (or nothing) in particular.

And then, he sees it--sees her. From where he is sitting on the first floor, he can see through the newly-installed glass wall that separates her and Elsa's office from the rest of the library, see right to where she is sitting at her desk. She seems so comfortable, her headphone cord running down in front of her as she oscillates between the computer and whatever sits in front of her, tapping her pen against her teeth, a habit he sometimes still hears in his sleep.

He can't take his eyes off of her, and it is now that he chooses to curse him again, that damned fairy tale boy that took her from his reach.

(Sure, he knows that's no fair: August is a great guy, and he's never done anything else to anger Killian except leave his toiletries all over the counter and his dishes in the sink, but hey, he has to express his anger somehow, and pushing it to August instead of holding it to himself is healthier, right? He reminds himself to ask Robin when he sees him.)

And then he gets an idea. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he scrolls through his messages to find their group message from last semester, that damned bloody curse of a modern technology marvel that Will made them all set up one night at the bar.

And then he finds it. Aptly (and drunkenly) named “The Boys’ Club,” it has, much to the spite of everyone in the group, become the easiest way to plan get-togethers, and Mulan never seemed to be bothered by it's sexist title. They have been friends since his first semester here; except Will, who he went to boarding school with in England before his parents moved them. Robin and Jefferson were roommates for a year before Killian arrived, and somehow Will added Mulan into their mix. So they became the Boys’ Club.

 _I don't know about everyone else, but I could use a drink tonight,_ Killian sends, and it is only a few moments before those three little dots pop up and the next message comes through.

 **_Robin_ ** _: Rough first day, Jones?_

**_Killian:_ ** _You don't know the half of it._


	6. Chapter Five: Emma

“He sure does spend a lot of time in the library, doesn’t he?” Emma asks, her eyes fixed somewhere far beyond her computer screen. 

At first, Elsa does not hear her, or thinks she is talking to herself, but after a moment, she turns towards her new friend. “Excuse me?”

“Killian,” she replies, still staring out the window. “I think he’s been in that chair every day this week. He just sits there and reads, or sits on his laptop, for hours.”

With Emma’s eyes still on the top of his head as he looks down at the pages of his book, she misses Elsa share a glance with Mulan, lounging on a chair outside the office door, but still close enough to hear their conversations. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Emma,” Mulan says from the hallway, her words slow, with a lot of thought behind them. “Killian studies places that are loud, with a lot of people. That’s where he thrives, not in quiet places like the corner of the library.”

“Oh.” Elsa flashes a small, warm smile out the door at Mulan, grateful for her during conversations like this. When Killian confirmed with her last night in the bar that Emma was the girl he has been in love with for ten years now, she has wanted nothing more than to bring them together somehow, to have him tell her before she ruined everything and told her his secret herself--and it hasn’t even been a day since the truth was confirmed! 

But Mulan is not just playing matchmaker, putting thoughts into Emma’s head that would lead her thoughts to Killian; he really does not do well in silence, places like libraries and empty rooms, even with music in his headphones. He needs movement, livelihood, almost as if having too many things to focus on makes it easier to keep his mind concentrated on whatever is in front of him, something he has learned since college in Storybrooke, where he spent much of his time in the library next to Emma. 

“Maybe he likes the renovations,” Mulan adds with a smile. 

“It is a lot more open than it used to be, so maybe there’s enough here to keep his attention.”

“Yeah,” Emma agrees, tapping the end of her pen against her teeth. “Maybe.”

But when she turns her eyes down to him again, he is looking up at her, his blue eyes bright from all the light shining through the windows next to him, and when their eyes meet, he turns the corners of his lips up in a smile. 

At just that moment, she is pulled out of her daze by a knock on the office door. “Hey, ladies,” August’s voice greets them, followed by his body around the corner, but he only has eyes for Emma, completely ignoring the other two. “I brought you some lunch.” He sets a brown paper bag from the sandwich shop on campus down in front of her, flashing a quick smile at her, which she returns in kind. 

“August, we’re already going out for dinner tonight, you didn’t have to buy me lunch.” Emma notices the redness spreading from the tops of his cheeks, but Elsa buts in before he can respond:

“Ooh, dinner! Is it a date? Where are you going?”

August turns to Emma, a bright flash passing over his shining blue eyes. 

“Nothing too extravagant, I hope,” Emma jokes, but she does not fail to notice how the tips of his ears continue to redden with her comment. 

“It’s, uh, that little French bistro down the road, you know?”

“I know that place,” Mulan comments from her seat in the hallway, and when Elsa turns to her, her eyebrows creased quizzically, she just shrugs. “What? I’ve been there. I went on a few dates when I got here before I met you, you know.”

“Fine, fine. It’s still a surprise, though.”

August presses the palm of his hand against Emma’s back, smiling down at her. “I have to get back to work, but I’ll pick you up? Around 6:30?”

“Perfect.”

 

The restaurant is, of course, much nicer than Emma would have thought before the conversation in the office today, and as the hostess leads them to their seats, she is glad that she decided not on the regular jeans-and-a-tee-shirt outfit she was planning on, but instead on a dark green long-sleeved dress--especially once she opened her bedroom door to find August in dark jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a dark blue tie. 

“August, this really wasn’t what I had in mind when you asked me to join you for dinner.”

“What were you expecting, then?” he asks, pushing her chair in behind her. 

“I dunno, pizza? Sandwiches? There were days in college when I would just have hot chocolate for dinner, so my standards are pretty low.”

“You’re in England now, Emma. You should really raise your standards.”

Emma turns her eyes down to the menu, taking a quick glance at everything before turning back up to August, wide. “I’ll think about raising my standards when places like this decide to lower their prices. No one should expect to pay this much just for a date.”

“Don’t worry about the prices. Just order what you want off the menu.”

“But I just - I don’t understand paying this much just for food?”

“Did you not have restaurants like this in… Maine? You said Maine, right?”

“Yeah. Yes, Maine. No to restaurants like this. We had a diner, a few pizza places, a coffee shop or two. That was really it. Killian took me out of town once for our anniversary, a nicer Italian place that was, like, twenty minutes out of the town lines, but that was really it.”

After he does not respond for a few moments, she looks back up at him, only to find him staring at her, eyes wide. 

“What?”

“You’re--you and Killian dated?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replies, realizing that she had been trying to keep her history with Killian a secret, though she was never sure why; but now that she had spilled the secret, there was no reason to keep it buried inside her anymore. “Through high school and college. We lived together for a few years, and when he was offered the position in New York, I couldn’t go with, so I broke up with him. It was--it was difficult, to say the least. But that was four years ago, and I know that I’ve only grown from letting him go.”

“Have you talked to him about this? About any of this?”

When he asks her this, she realizes that she  _ hasn’t _ . She never even thought about it, never even wondered if there was anything they needed to talk about. 

“You should talk to him, Emma. Killian and I have been friends for a while, and I wouldn’t want to do anything before you talk to him about his feelings.”

Emma can’t even believe what she is hearing. “Are you--are you telling me that he still has feelings for me? After four years?”

August holds his hands up in front of him, surrendering. “I’m not saying anything else. All I’m doing is asking you to talk to him. Can you do that for me?”

She takes a deep breath, running her hand over her face. “Yeah. Yeah, fine.”

The rest of the date goes well, with August telling her about his childhood, then her telling him about hers. They talk about school and classes, their undergrad studies, and their favorite books; about their favorite movies, books that should have been made into movies, and books that shouldn’t. 

But no matter where their conversation takes them, her mind is stuck on one fact, one that stays at the forefront of her thoughts for the rest of the night: Killian might still have feelings for her. And just the idea that he  _ might _ is enough to keep August from being comfortable enough going on a date with her. 


	7. Chapter Six: Killian

It would be a lie for Killian to say he is not waiting by the window in his bedroom, watching for August’s car to pull into the small lot behind the apartment. 

It would be a lie to say that he has not been agitatedly sketching for the three hours they’ve been gone, and a lie to say that every nervous sketch had not turned into some part of her--sketches that, after the first hour, prompted him to pull a canvas out of his closet and begin a large, detailed drawing of one of her eyes, which turned into a large painting of one of her eyes. 

It would be a lie for him to say he does not feel the breath leave his lungs when he sees his headlights on the building next to them, finally coming home. 

And, if Killian were to tell anyone that he knew what drove him to rush to turn off his bedroom lights and open his door just enough so that he could see into the entryway when they came inside… it would be a lie. 

But that is exactly where he finds himself when he hears the door open on the other side of the living room, peeking out of the crack between his door and the frame. He hopes that, if either of them were to turn towards his room, it would be dark enough to cloak them from their sight, but he still takes a step back when she steps through the door before him. 

Of course, she is  _ gorgeous.  _ He tried to push the memories of her getting dressed up for dates to the back of his mind, tried to forget those days that she was the most beautiful thing that he had the privilege of seeing and not just the siren that haunted his dreams. And suddenly--finally--after all those years, here she is again, right in front of him, but dressed up for another man.  Her dark green dress fits her perfectly, as if it were specifically made to fit her body.

She is perfect.

And he can’t have her.

As he watches August lead her through the door, his hand placed gently on her lower back, he feels his hands clench into fists at his side. Judging by the smile spread across her face, he senses the night must have gone well. 

_ Damn that August Booth to the depths.  _

He watches as August leads her across the living room and around the corner to where her bedroom door lies just out of his line of vision. He says something to her, too soft for him to hear from his hiding spot, and presses his lips gently on her cheek. 

Killian feels like he is about to explode, watching Emma disappear into her room and not being able to see if August follows her--until he turns away, his eyes on Killian’s door for just a moment as he makes his way down the hallway to his own room. 

When Killian releases his breath, he realizes that he was holding it in. Running his fingers through his hair, he shakes his head at himself. Emma could not have changed enough in four years to have done anything after the first date; and even then, who the hell did he think he is, judging her for the same behavior he had spent the last four years showing? 

He is almost ready to turn away to throw something-- _ anything _ \--across the room in anger, and he turns one last glance towards Emma’s bedroom door only to find her standing outside her room where he can see her, her eyes fixed on his door. He watches as she mumbles something to herself and smiles, running her thumb over her star tattoo on her wrist. With one more smile, she turns back towards her room, disappearing once again from his view. 

Without thinking about it, he rests his forehead against the cold wood of the door, accidentally closing it the rest of the way a little louder than he had hoped to. When he does not hear anything on the other side for a few moments, he lets out the rest of his breath, then takes the few steps to his bed, which he flops down on. 

He tries to calm himself, to focus on his breath and not on the anger surging through his veins, but it’s really, truly, very much  _ not working.  _ No matter where he tries to get his mind to wander, he always ends back on Emma’s date, the pictures of her flirting with August and the kiss on the cheek at the end of their date seared into the forefront of his mind. And this is exactly what he is seeing on the other side of his eyelids when his phone goes off by his head. 

Even though he is not in the mood for any of the shenanigans from the  _ Boy’s Club _ , he picks it up anyway, glaring at the screen, but when he sees the message waiting for him, he shoots up off the bed.

 

**_Emma:_ ** _ Are you awake? _

 

He can’t take his eyes off his phone. 

She wants to talk to him. 

She just got home from a date, one that looked like it went pretty well, and of all things,  _ she wants to talk to him.  _

But, for some reason, he’s still not sure if he should answer. 

_ Why  _ does she want to talk to him? Did August say something about him--about his feelings--on their date? Did someone else tell her? Or, worse-- _ or is it? _ \--did she somehow see him when they got home, watching her through the crack in his door?

No matter what the reason is, the important thing is still that she wants to talk to him, and even if it means giving up his cover of darkness, he decides that he needs to talk to her, too. 

In place of a response, he sends her the cappuccino cup emoji with a question mark, and she replies in kind: with the thumbs up. 

He takes a second to pull himself together, to cover his boxer shorts with a pair of flannel and run his fingers through his hair, when his eyes are pulled to the canvas across the room, the one which he started the details of her eyes from memory; and, though he’s not quite sure why--or why he doesn’t want Emma to know of his new hobby--he collapses the easel with the canvas still on it and places it back in his closet. 

When he comes out of the dark room into the soft lighting of the kitchen, he finds Emma in her pajamas, a tank top and a pair of boxer shorts, every bit as beautiful as she was coming home from her date. She is standing at the counter, placing the electric kettle back on its stand, and after she presses the button to turn it on, she turns towards him, a soft smile on her face. 

“Hey.”

He takes a seat at the table, ruffling through the box of tea bags, but smiles up at her for a moment before going back to his task. “Hey. You still want a hot chocolate, right? Because they’re not in the box.” He’s not surprised when she pulls one from off the counter behind her back with a nod. 

“Yeah, I found them already.”

“Some things never change,” he jokes, talking about her love of hot chocolate, but something deeper flashes behind her eyes, which stay locked with his. 

“You’re right. Some things don’t.” A beat passes between them, a beat which feels like it lasts a lifetime with the unspoken question hanging in the air between them, before she blinks and whatever question was behind her eyes disappears. “And I assume you’re still drinking Irish Breakfast?”

He holds up the tea bag between his fingers for her to see with a shrug, but says nothing. 

And either does she. 

One second turns into a few, and he finally decides to break the silence with a harmless question: “How are you liking England?”

Letting out her breath, she flashes him a quick smile. “It’s beautiful. Everything I ever thought it would be.”

“And just think, you’re only seen the part of it between here and London. If you’d like, I would love to show you around some more of it, when we both get time off.”

When she smiles again, this time specifically at him and his offer, he suddenly feels as if he will never be able to take a full breath of air again, and even without a shirt on, he can feel the heat rising through his body. 

“I would like that,” she says. “Do you have plans for spring break? Because I don’t think I’m going home quite yet. We do have off for that, right?”

“Yes, we have off for that week. And the only plan I had so far was to see when Liam was off, but I see him every week anyway.”

“By all means, spend time with your brother. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, right?”

“Aye. But I’m sure he would understand if we decided to take a little road trip for a few days. Especially to let a first-timer like you see all the beauty we English have to offer.”

When she lets out a small laugh in his direction, his eyes dart back up to hers. 

“What?”

“You really are exactly the same Killian Jones that I knew, aren’t you?”

“Is that a bad thing?” he asks softly, but before she can answer, the kettle lets out it’s whistle, and Emma turns away from him, taking it off the base to fill the two mugs the sit before her, handing one to him as she goes to the fridge to find her bottle of whipped cream. 

She takes the few moments to put her drink together, topping it with a layer of whipped cream and cinnamon before sitting down next to him at the small table, then turns to face him. 

“I have a question,” she says, her eyes searching his. “And if you don’t want to answer it, or can’t answer it quite yet, that’s fine, but I--I need to know.”

“Anything, love,” he whispers, trying to hold himself together enough for what he knows is going to come next. “I’ll answer whatever it is.”

She takes a deep breath, running her finger through the whipped cream and bringing it to her mouth before continuing. “When I told August that you and I had a--a past, that we were together back home, he told me that I needed to talk to you. That he wouldn’t feel… comfortable being with me, even going out with me, until I talked to you about how you feel.” When she looks back up at him, his eyes are fixed on his tea cup, slowly stirring it with the small spoon, afraid of what would happen if he were to look up at her. “I need to know, Killian.” Hearing her say his name, with so many levels of emotion behind it, finally makes him pull his eyes off of the small collection of bubbles in the center of the whirlpool of his mug and back to the perfect emeralds of her eyes. “I need to know if you’re still in love with me.”

He wants to say no, to laugh it off and act like he hasn’t spent the last four years in agony without her, that they can just go on with their normal lives, being friends and housemates and classmates without her ever needing to know all of the bad decisions that her leaving him have led to. And if he was a stronger man, if he knew he would be able to live with himself without showing her all the pain he has felt at her behalf, he probably would have.

But looking up at her, seeing the need for the truth in her pale green eyes, he knows that he cannot lie to her, even if it means hurting her. So he raises his hand to his ear, scratching behind it before he runs his fingers through his hair. 

“Yes.”


	8. Chapter 7: Emma

“Yes.” 

The word echoes in her head like a gunshot in a movie.

YES.

_ Yes. _

Yes. Yes, he’s in love with her again.  _ Still.  _ What’s the difference, with something like this? What’s the difference, learning that the one person you’ve spent years trying to forget shows back up in your life and has the  _ audacity  _ to say he’s still in love with you?

Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ She feels the mug of hot chocolate in her hand, the seat beneath her; but mentally, she is somewhere else entirely. Mentally, she's reliving the pain of leaving him, the neverending heartbreak she endured every time she thought about him for years. Sure, she was the one that broke up with him--it was her choice, and there were a few times, moments late in the night when she would lie awake and relive the pain of leaving him over and over again, ruined over how damn much she missed him.

And then, just like falling in love with him in the first place, everything slowly started getting better. She found herself having less nightmares about losing him, less dreams about him in the first place. Less nights wondering if he is thinking about her, thinking about where he is and how he is doing. 

Just like that, she started healing. And part of her healing process was realizing that she needed to leave Storybrooke, understanding that even though she could leave with him a few years before didn't mean that she could never leave, and that maybe it was the right time to take the next step. Part of healing herself past the pain of letting go of him was applying to Oxford, packing up everything important that she owned and moving to  _ fucking England. _

Realizing that there are other things out there for her was exactly what led her back to Killian, unbeknownst to both of them, to everyone but the universe. And since the first moment in the airport, when she saw him for the first time in four years, she had hoped that he had gone through the same stages of heartbreak as she had, had grown as much as she had and moved on to bigger and better things than his high school sweetheart. 

Apparently, she was wrong. And, looking back at this very moment, she saw the signs and refused to believe them. She recognized the look in his eye when he picked her up at the damned airport, had her suspicions when he started ignoring her, quarantining himself in his room, because she realized it happened when she started… whatever it was she had with August. Expected it more after the convo with Elsa and Mulan about his sitting in the library, deciding not to ignore her and walking her home when August has class. 

But tonight, with August telling her that she needed to talk to him before he would feel comfortable doing anything with her, proved it as much as anything beyond his own admission of feelings could prove. 

But that still does not stop the shock that comes, hearing him tell her that he still loves her. She expected--hoped?--it was  _ again _ and not  _ still _ , but it’s all the same now. He loves her, as much as he always has. 

Damn him. 

“Emma?” 

When she looks back up at him, she realizes that she has no  _ idea  _ how long it's been since he said it--seconds? Minutes? She highly doubts it's been hours, but she also really, truly, has no idea. She snaps her head up, meeting the brightness of his, and his face is filled with just as much emotion as her own: nervousness, fear, exhaustion.  _ Love.  _

“Emma, please.” He is pleading with her, needs some sort of response from her to keep him sane. “Please say something. Anything.”

And she wants to. She wants to tell him how much hurt she has endured because of him over the past four years without him. She wants to tell him about all the nights she fell asleep missing him, craving the feeling of his arms around her again. She wants to tell him how much, even if it was buried deep down inside, she wanted to crawl back into his arms, the place of her comfort for so long, when she saw him in the airport. 

But, instead of all the things she wants to say, she finds herself unable to say anything. No matter how much she has to say, the words just  _ won’t come _ . The only thing she finds herself able to do it set down her mug of hot chocolate and reach across the space between them, setting her palm against his cheek, trying to find her words in his blue eyes. 

It doesn’t help. 

“Emma?” There is something in his eyes, something that makes her so desperately want to find her words, but even the terrified pleading in his eyes is not enough to make her say anything. 

She can’t take it any longer, that damned gleam in his eye, so, as much as it hurts her to do so, she does the next thing she can think of: with her mug of hot chocolate back in hand, she turns back to the door of her bedroom, fighting every instinct within her to turn back to him, and closes the door behind her. 

After setting the mug on her desk, she falls forward onto her mattress, burying her head under her pillow. 

“Fuck.” 

The word feels odd in her throat, the only word she is able to conjure after not being able to say anything to Killian. What had happened back there? What had made her so unable to respond, especially to something that she so desperately wanted to respond to? 

Did she really want to respond the way she was trying to?

What if, somewhere deep down in her heart--her brain--she knew that she couldn’t respond the way she was trying to? What if, somewhere, she understood that she wasn’t ready to jump back into something that deep? She had spent so long trying to make herself  _ better _ that, just maybe, she needed some time to rediscover who she could be with him, now that she had discovered who she is without him.

_ Time _ . She needs time, she decides. She might still (again?) be in love with him already-- _ might _ . But, just like she has, she assumes that he has changed over the past four years, changed from the boy she met, the teenager she fell in love with, and the man, pushed too quickly into adulthood, that she watched drive away from Storybrooke. 

The man that, looking back, she realizes that she never stopped caring about, even if she stopped loving him for a short time. 

_ Shit _ , the man that she left sitting at the kitchen table without an answer. What did she make him think? What kind of impression had she left him with, sitting at the table without even a word of a reaction. 

She has to, at least, put him at ease. 

At least ten minutes have passed since she left him at the table, and she expects that he has moved himself back into his bedroom; but when she pokes her head out from her bedroom, she finds that she was incorrect. He’s still sitting at the table, his head resting on his right arm with his hand wrapped around his left wrist--no, not just wrapped. As she takes a few steps towards him, her eyes train to his thumb, moving over his wrist, at the base of his tattoo sleeve. 

And that’s when she sees it.

Really sees it. 

Sure, she’s seen it before. Maybe even recognized it. But it is not until this moment, standing behind the grieving man at the table, that she puts it all together. Buried under the constellations and the galaxies and the planets, right at the base of his left wrist, is a star.  _ Her _ star. The same one she has, in the same place. The same one that he went with her to get, that he helped her decide on, so there is no way it’s an accident. 

He got that tattoo because of her, and it had to have been after he left, because the only one he had when he left was the anchor on his other arm, with his and Liam’s initials wound around it. 

“Killian?” she says softly, setting her hand on his shoulder, and she feels him jump beneath her before spinning around in his chair to look at her. There was a huge change in his face from when she left for her room, a definite rim of red around his eyes, as though he shed a few years at some point and then spent the past ten minutes rubbing them with the pads of his hands. He looks rough, disheveled--though, given what she just put him through, she doesn’t blame him for being out of sorts. 

He says nothing, but the surprise painted across his face is response enough. She steps around him and takes a seat next to him, her eyes not on his face, but on his hands.

“Listen, I--”

“I’m sorry,” he says, stopping her words. “I--I had no right to use my feelings to make you uncomfortable, or to jeopardize your relationship with August. You should be able to make your own decisions when it comes to this, not be swayed by my own, and for that, I am truly sorry.”

She smiles softly across the space between them, but his head is turned down to the floor; to regain his attention, she reaches out and places her hand on top of his. Though his head is still turned down, his bright eyes, highlighted to be be even brighter by the rings of bright red around them, snap up to her, peering out from under his eyelashes. She smiles again. 

“You have nothing to apologize for, K. You’re allowed to have feeling, too, and you’re allowed to voice them. What would you have done in place of voicing your feelings? Let them simmer for years until you explode? Never tell me how you feel and just watch as I continued on with my life? How is that fair to you?”

The corner of his lips pulls up in the start of a smile, but it is just a flash. “You always did understand me too well, Swan.” He stares across the table at her for a moment, searching her eyes for… something.

“Just give me some time.”

“Of course, love. I’ve pined over you from afar for four years now. At least now I can see you in person instead of just ghosts of you in my dreams.”

Smiling at him again, she rolls her eyes as she shakes her head. “Now there’s the Killian Jones I know.”

“So, where does this put you and Mr. Booth?”

“Well, since he said that I needed to talk to you before he could take any more steps and had to know how I felt before continuing, I would figure that he’s expecting me to choose you, so it’s not going to break his heart when he learns that I am.”

His eyes grow wide, locked with hers. “So you are choosing me, then?” 

“Of course I am, Killian. Anyone that feels strongly enough to love a girl this much after years apart, after having his heart broken, deserves to be chosen.” 

“I don’t want you to choose me because I deserve it. I want you to choose me because it’s what you want, what your heart wants. I don’t care how long I’ve waited for you, how many times I wished whoever I was with was you. I want to win your heart because you want to be with me.” 

She reaches out between them and takes his hand in hers again, running her finger along his knuckles, then turns it over and turns her eyes down to the star on his wrist. “Why would I ever want to be with anyone besides the man that missed me enough to get the same tattoo as me as a reminder?” 

Even in the low light of the kitchen in the middle of the night, she does not fail to see the tips of his ears redden along with the tops of his cheekbones. “So you noticed that, eh?” 

  
  


“How did your date go last night, Emma?” Elsa asks, distracting her from the piles of paperwork sitting in front of the two of them--the wonders of syllabus week. 

“What?”

She has been distracted all morning, but it was not because of August, though she’s not sure whether or not she is ready to tell the world about it yet.

“Your date last night? With August? How did it go?”

But, besides Killian, Elsa is the closest thing Emma has to a friend on campus, so if she’s going to tell anyone, she decides it would be her. 

“Actually,” she says, setting down the papers in her hands to look across the table at Elsa, who snaps her head up at the word. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, August is great, and the date went really well, he’s a total sweetheart, but… it’s just not gonna work out.”

Her white-blue eyes widen, a gossip-driven smile spreading across her face--and then, Emma is hit with her wall of worry. What if Elsa tells everyone that the date didn’t go well, because she broke it off right away? What if--not that Emma thought she would, but  _ what if _ \--Elsa somehow used Killian’s secret of being in love with her against him? 

“No, I--I really shouldn’t say.”

“Emma! Come on, you know you can trust me.”

_ Damn.  _ She had her there; Elsa had become one of the most trustworthy people she’s ever met, a statement backed by everyone; if she couldn’t trust Elsa with her secret-that-didn’t-have-to-be-a-secret, then she couldn’t trust anyone. 

“Okay! Okay, fine. We'll, the date with August went well, and we were talking about our time back home in the States, and I said something about Killian, and how we dated for a long while until he left for his New York job. And then August--he, like, closed off. Told me that I needed to talk to Killian about his 'feelings’ before he would 'feel comfortable’ going any further.” 

Emma expects some sort of surprise from the blonde across from her, some kind of response at the knowledge she just dropped, at her whole history with Killian, but she seems unfazed by it all.  “And? Did you? Did you talk to Killian?!”

“Yeah, I did. And he, uh, told me that he’s still in love with me. Four years since we split, and the universe brings us back together for him to have never gotten over me…” She follows her gut instinct, though, and looks eyes with Elsa across the table. “But you already knew that, didn't you?”

She reddens just the smallest bit, but the fairness of her skin makes it obvious. The shy, embarrassed smile that slowly spreads across her face makes it more obvious.”I, uh… maybe? I--we, well, we all knew that he had a girl when he lived in America that he was still in love with, but we figured that the most we would ever have to do with it was listen to him talk about her when he’s had to much rum. And then you showed up, and I noticed that he started acting a little unusual. Coming to the library, even though I know he can’t focus in here, and being more closed off than I’ve ever seen him. I guessed it, too. Asked him about it the other night at the bar, and he couldn’t deny it.”

“So, you've known? You’ve known for at least a few days that he’s in love with me, and just continued about our work days together?”

She shrugs. “What else was I supposed to do? Tell you Killian’s darkest secret, that involved you and should only come from you?”

“Okay, that’s valid.”

Nodding, she learns forward on her arms, stretching across the table towards her. “What did you say, though? To Killian? After he told you that he’s still in love with you?”

“We'll, I… I told him that I just need some time, you know? It’s been four years since I told him that I couldn’t be with him anymore, and that’s four years that I spent mainly trying to figure out who I was without him, and hopefully he did the same. So I need some time for us to get to know those differences.”

“Do you still love him?”

Even though it is the exact question she spent all of the night before trying not to ask herself, hearing it come from Elsa’s mouth hits her like a bucket of water to the face. Elsa must notice the change in her face, because she jumps back, raising her hands in the air, a terrified look on her face. “Unless you--no, you don’t have to answer that! 'm sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that, shouldn’t have crossed that line.”

Doing her best to soften the look on her face, she reaches across the table to set her hand on Elsa’s, calmingly. “No, no, it’s not you. I’ve been asking myself that same question since last night, constantly, but it just sounds so real coming out of your mouth, the very question I’ve been trying to avoid.”

“But  _ do you _ ?”

As if someone sends them into the office at just the right moment for comedic effect, just as August entered as they were talking about him the day before, this is the moment Killian knocks on the door, two paper bags in one hand, once grease-stained and one a crisp white, and a coffee carrier with two cups and a water bottle in the other. 

“Hello, ladies,” he says, and though Emma’s eyes snap to him, Elsa leaves hers on Emma, trying to watch her face for some kind of reaction, the answer to the question Emma left unanswered, though by the smile that she watches spread across her face, she thinks she might be able to guess the answer. “I brought lunch. For both of you.” 

He hands them both their bags--the greasy brown one to Emma, the white one to Elsa--and they straighten out their piles of papers, but ultimately decide to move to their desks to keep their messes away from the paperwork. 

As he hands Elsa the bottle of water, he says, “I got you both your favorites. For Elsa, one of those chicken-apple-caesar salads and a water.” He turns to Emma, and neither Emma nor Elsa fail to see how the smile on his face changes from the soft one he gave to Elsa to something stronger. “And a grilled cheese with onion rings and a hot chocolate with cinnamon for you.”

Emma returns his smile, but turns to Elsa at her desk, shaking the container of salad. 

“To answer your question from before, Elsa? Yes. Yeah, I think I do.”


	9. Chapter Eight: Killian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so incredibly long because a week of vacation backed itself up against my brain not wanting to make words for what felt like forever… And given that I still need to finish up the end of my cssns fic that (is supposed to) drop on Friday, this one might take a hot sec to update again. Apologies. But I do plan on updating a few more times before I start classes and my new job at the end of the month!

If he thought being near her--pining over her from afar and not knowing whether she reciprocated his feelings was difficult, he should have known that having her so close, with her knowing exactly how he felt and being _pretty sure_ how she feels in return but not knowing _for sure_ , have created the two most difficult weeks of his life.

The worst part is, around her, nothing makes sense anymore. He can sit at the table next to her, reading through _Hamlet_ or _Titus Andronicus_ or even _Midsummer,_ which he has committed to memory, and keeps finding himself unable to concentrate on the words in front of him:

 _For aught that I could ever read,_  
_Could ever hear by tale or history,_  
_The course of true love never did run smooth._ _  
But either it was different in blood.._

_Or else misgraffèd in respect of years..._

_Or else it stood upon the choice of friends..._

_Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,_  
_War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,_  
_Making it momentary as a sound,_  
_Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,_  
_Brief as the lightning in the collied night._

 

The words he knows by memory, language that practically flows through his damned veins, and yet, sitting across the table from Emma, he can only think about her.

Even here, with classes cancelled and nothing to think about except the movie playing on the screen in front of them, he can't focus on anything but her.

Her eyes are fixed on the television; more specifically, on “The Princess Bride,” the movie they ( _she_ ) decided on as soon as the snow started to fall. The very same movie they watched the first time they were snowed in, a Saturday during their junior year. The first time they _really_ kissed. She doesn’t seem to see the irony.

He can’t seem to think about anything else.

His eyes are fixed on her.

In fact, he’s thinking about that first time, the first time he was graced with the comical humor of the movie, and of the soft feeling of her lips pressed against his, far before either of them had any idea about what they were doing.

If they ever had any idea what they were doing.

She’s definitely more beautiful now than she was at the peak of their relationship four years ago. He didn’t think that was at all possible, but looking at her right now, he can’t deny it.

_Did they ever have any idea what they were doing?_

“You know, that’s not how you watch a movie, Killian.”

“Forgive me, Swan. I tend to have difficulty concentrating when there is something that deserves my attention more.”

For just a moment, she turns her attention away from the flatscreen to smile at him, shaking her head at him.

“Are you ever going to stop dropping lines like that?”

“Not bloody likely.”

The Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up the Cliffs of Insanity when her hand touches his for the first time. She's shifting in her seat, probably an accident, but the electric shock he can swear he feels is no accident.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, pushing a strand of hair out of her face.

“No need,” he whispers, the corner of his mouth flicking up in a smile.

But when she sets her hand back down at her side, the edge of her pinky resting close enough to his that he can swear he can feel it.

_Gods, Killian, you're not in high school anymore._

But here, on this couch, close enough to feel the crackles of electricity between them, that's exactly what he feels like. Like a lame high schooler, his heart pounding in his chest and butterflies in his stomach. He wants to reach out for her, to wrap his hand around her--hell, wrap _his whole body_ around her--

_Damn it, Killian. That makes no bloody sense._

But nothing makes sense around her anymore.

She smiles at the screen (“ _It's not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise”_ ) and lets out the smallest chuckle, and with the light from the streetlights and the TV slowly becoming the only light in the room, the strand of hair falling in her face again and her shining green eyes set on the movie, he's pretty sure that she's never been more beautiful.

He feels it before she starts to move, the initial movement of her arm, but stops it with his hand, instead reaching up to brush the hair out of her face himself. Her eyes snap to his, already facing towards her, though they close gently as his fingers brush her forehead.

“Emma,” he whispers, leaning in the rest of the way to press his forehead against hers.

Her eyes are wide, flitting back and forth between his searching for… something. He feels for her fingers, slides them through his own.

That was all he wanted. That's what he tells himself, _feeling_ her hand under his, so warm and real and _there_ , when she fills the inches between their faces, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck to press her lips against his.

It's soft, gentle, and perfect, everything he's been hoping for since he saw her walk through the airport towards him.

Since he got the star tattoo because he missed her so damn much.

 _Hell_ , since he watched her in the rear-view mirror of his Chevelle, leaving her and Storybrooke behind.

He feels her pressing her hand into his chest, _knows_ the way she pulls him closer by the back of his neck, signs that he memorized years ago, but instead of deepening the kiss, what he knows she wants, he pulls away, putting just enough space between them to look her in the eye, though they take a moment to reopen before he sees the startlingly vivid green.

“What?” she asks, though the roughness of her voice almost prohibits the word from escaping.

“Swan,” he whispers, pressing his fingers against her cheek before continuing. “I don't--I just want to make sure completely and perfectly and… incandescently sure that this is what you want to do and that you're not just doing it because you know--you know how I feel.”

She says nothing, both of them searching for all the answers to the universe in the eyes of the other, but only for a moment, before she leans in, presses her lips to his again, though gentler than before, and then turns her eyes back towards the TV.

And then, with her eyes fixed on the screen, he takes his wrist in her hand and lifts it up over her head, resting his arm over her shoulders and flashing him a smile fast enough that her eyes are back on the movie before the sword fight has begun.

As Vizzini is dying, she reaches up and threads her fingers through his.

They’re going into the Fire Swamp when she pulls herself closer to him, her hand resting on his leg, the heat of it boring a hole through his jeans, his leg, all the way down to the goddamned couch.

Miracle Max announces that Wesley is only “mostly dead!” when he turns to her and finds that her eyes have flitted shut, but it takes him all the way through to the wedding to slowly-- _slowly_ \--lower them down onto the couch, her head on his chest, bright hair strewn over his black tee, and her legs curled around his. He breathes her in, his face practically in her hair, the same smell of flowers and raspberries that she’s had since high school.

 _Damn_ if he isn’t in deep.

  


They are still there when the sun peeks through the blinds covering the large window in the living room, the snow covering the world making it all seem so much brighter. But the light is not what wakes him up. At some point after he turned off the TV, he has turned towards her, one arm curled under his head and the other wrapped around her waist.

In every sense of the word, Killian finally has everything he has been waiting for.

But what wakes him up is not any of this. Not the perfect bliss, the happiness of waking up cradling her in his arms again, or the warmth of the pure white light reflecting off the snow outside the windows. Instead, it is the incessant rattle of his cell phone against the glass top of the coffee table where he left it the night before.

At first, he doesn't realize _what_ is making the noise, only that it's loud enough to wake him. And, somehow, _not_ loud enough to wake the angel asleep in his arms. Once he realizes that it's his phone--someone calling him, nonetheless--he tries his very best to leave her as she is, getting up off the couch to respond to whoever _in the hell_ needs him at 8:30, even on a Thursday--a Thursday that they're _snowed in, for Christs sake_.

**_Liam._ **

Of course it's Liam, his best friend in the whole world even if he has zero understanding of when in the morning is classified as “too early to call someone,” especially on a day like today when all of England is probably shut down with the snow.

“What?” Killian answers bluntly, knowing full well that Liam's voice on the other end of the line will be far too chipper for having been awake for all of three seconds.

“Good morning, brother!” His voice is not only chipper, but almost entirely too loud for someone that's been awake for _all of three seconds._

Killian tries not to respond, hoping he'll just get on with whatever he needs at this hour of the morning, but when he does not, all he can muster is a growling “Hello.”

“Wide awake, as always.”

“Liam, it's not even nine in the morning.”

“Have you looked out the window?”

“Excuse me?”

“The window? The window, Killian! Go look out the window!”

“You know you just woke me up, so how do you expect me to have already looked out the window?” But even through his grumbling, he does just as his brother asks and crosses the room to where he can pull the curtains apart to see what his brother wants him so desperately to see.

“Just look out the window!”

And he is, though what he is seeing is nothing more than he expected: the streets, small yards, cars, sidewalks, all the same color, the same blinding shade of perfect, untouched white.

“Are you looking out the window?”

“Yes, Liam, I'm looking out the damned window. It snowed last night, but I know that, and I hope that you didn't wake me up at eight thirty on a day campus is closed just to tell me that it snowed.”

“What window are you at?”

“Excuse me?”

“What _window_ , Killian?” he repeats, as if it is the most obvious question he has ever asked.

“I, uh… I'm in the living room.”

“You slept in the living room?”

“What is this, Liam, an interrogation?”

“Just go look out your bedroom window.”

“What?”

“Killian,” he pleads, but he is already on his way down the hallway. “Come on!”

“I'm going! I'm going.” As he pulls back the blackout curtain in his bedroom, he starts to say, “I’m here!”, but all he got out was the “I’m-” before his breath catches in the back of his throat.

“Hello!” Liam says again, this time paired with a wave from where he is standing outside Killian’s window.

Well, sitting. Sitting… on a snowmobile. A snowmobile, on a trailer attached to the most obnoxious pickup truck Killian has ever seen, parked on the street at the end of the small parking lot between their building and the neighboring one. But there’s not just one snowmobile.

There are two.

“Killian?” Liam asks, after what is apparently too long a pause.

“Yes?”

“Are you--are you going to say anything?”

“How in the hell did you get that monstrosity through the streets of Oxford?”

“If you’ll remember, brother, I drive military vehicles for a living. This _monstrosity_ is far from the hardest piece of equipment I’ve dealt with. Besides, the streets are practically empty, so that made things a little easier, too.”

“Okay, so we’ve gotten through how, so that takes us to why?”

“What?”

“No, Liam, why.”

“What do you mean _why_? All of the sudden I need an occasion to rent two snowmobiles to spend a snowy morning with my brother ?”

“Where are we going?”

“I have a few ideas, but they’re all closer to the base. Just get ready to go, and meet me down here.”

“Did you ever think I already had plans?”

“Killian Jones, have plans? I’ve been your brother your whole life and I don’t think I’ve, once, heard you say that you have plans. Even when you do.”

“What if I do?”

“So you’re telling me I rented these for no reason? And is this related to why you slept in the living room?”

Killian feels his hand fly up to the spot behind his ear that always seems to itch when he’s embarrassed, and he knows that Liam can see it from where he is standing.

“Can’t you just come down here and talk to me?”

“What, you’re not enjoying this as much as I am?”

“Killian!”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll be right down.”

For some reason, he feels the need to change something about his outfit, so he changes out of his black tee into a long-sleeved black shirt, then pulls his boots on. The cold never really bothered him, but he knows that if he goes down in the snow without it, he may never hear the end of it.

“Emma,” he says gently, pressing his lips against the back of her head, and she slowly turns away from the inside of the couch and towards the light.

“Killian?” she mumbles, and he moves to block the light from her face, so she smiles up at him.

“Good morning.”

“What time is it?”

“Too early, but I just wanted to let you know, I’m probably heading out.”

This seems to wake her up even more than the light has. “Heading out?”

“Liam’s here.”

“Liam? He’s here?!”

Her excitement towards him pulls a smile to his face. “Yes, love. He came to pick me up to do something today, since, you know, everything is covered in snow.”

“Right! The snow.”

“Yeah, he, uh, brought us snowmobiles and wants to go back to one of the bases.”

“Can I at least come down and say hi? I haven’t seen him for… years.”

“Years, yeah. But, yeah, I think that would be nice, since, uh, he doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Give me a minute, I’ll be right down.”

He smiles down at her again. “Perfect. He’s out by the parking lot.”

“Great.”

He kisses her forehead again, then lets himself out the door.

Of course, the first thing Liam does when Killian reaches him is begin the heckling.

“So, brother, why did  you sleep on the couch last night? Don’t think I failed to see that thing you do with your ear when you wish you could avoid a question.”

“I do not do that!”

They both know it's a lie, so Liam just ignores his outburst and repeats the question.

“What exactly do you have to do to get kicked out of your own bedroom?”

“I didn't get kicked out.”

“So you chose to sleep on the couch?”

“It was more of a, uh… circumstantial occurrence.”

“That's that vocabulary that Brennan paid so much for.” Killian blushes again, but he hopes Liam chooses to attribute the change of color in his cheeks to the burst of freezing wind that suddenly takes over the street. “You can't keep avoiding my question, brother.”

“Can't I?”

“If we're spending the whole day together, then I would seriously advise against it.”

“I fell asleep there.” He watches Liam's eyes travel behind him, then widen at the same time as his smile does. “Or, better, _we_ did.”

Either Liam doesn't hear his correction, or he is too focused on his own excitement to respond, or acknowledge it, or do anything but run right past him and across the parking lot, wrapping her and the blanket she toted down with her in a hug that would have knocked both of them off their feet if he were anyone other than Liam Jones. Of course, if he was anyone other than Liam Jones, the eight inches of snow covering the parking lot would have held him back a bit, too. But, alas.

“Emma!” he exclaims, and all she can do is laugh at him. He may have only lived in Storybrooke for a few months, but when you include all of the video calls and telephone calls that she was right there next to Killian when he answered, Liam became just as much a part of her life as he was Killian's in the years they were together. “Emma, what in the world are you doing here?”

“Hasn't Killian told you?”

When they both turn to him, he finds himself unable to do anything but raise his hand to his head, softly scratching that damned spot behind his ear again.

“This is something he's chosen to hide from me, it seems.”

“I'm studying here now. In the smallest of small-world coincidences, I applied here and was given a job, and when I got off the plane, there was Killian, sitting there reading a book. Did he really not tell you any of this?”

“No, apparently he’s been surprisingly silent on the subject of you.” He turns from Emma to face Killian, still making his way across the snow-covered parking lot towards them. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Liam.”

“You know I’m going to get it out of you, brother.”

He goes to argue with him some more, but when he turns to Emma and sees the soft smile spreading across her face, a smile that somehow tells him that she knows exactly why he’s hidden her from Liam. So, instead of keeping up the lie, he winks at Emma, then stops in front of his brother.

“You really want to know why I didn’t tell you? This whole month that she’s been here, I haven’t told you, because you know how absolutely, terribly in love with her I still am, and I knew I would never hear the end of your incessant nagging asking me why I’ve yet to do anything as incredibly embarrassing, like walking into her office or her bedroom or her classroom and professing my love to her.”

Liam’s eyes grow wide, taken aback by Killian’s sudden outburst, but Emma can’t keep her straight face that she’s tried so desperately to hold through Killain’s confession, and when Liam finally turns away from his brother and towards Emma, she bursts out laughing, a move which changes his face from terror to surprise.

“You knew already?” he asks her, and she nods.

“I knew already.”

“He already told you all of this.”

She nods again. “He’s told me all of this.”

“And you don’t seem to be shying away from it all, so…”

She turns to Killian, who smiles down at her, then fills the space between them--though much more awkwardly than he pictured, given the snow--sliding his arm around her shoulders over the blanket.

If he was _anyone other than Liam Jones_ , then Killian would have described his response to this as ‘fangirling,’ but that is entirely too _unmasculine_ a word to describe anything Liam does, and it’s interestingly difficult to describe anything a six-foot-something bear of a man does with a word like that.

(But he, of course, fangirls, but does so while wrapping both of them in his arms.)

“Oh, Killian! That’s so great! And Emma! I have a sister again!”

“It’s so good to see you again!”

“Now, if I remember correctly, I think the two of you were planning on doing something?” she asks, trying her very best not to start shivering, which she desperately wants to do.

“Right!” Liam exclaims, backing away from them and clapping his hands together. “The snowmobiles!”

“Just so you know, Em, this wasn’t planned. I was fully ready to spend the rest of the day on the couch with you.”

“I’m going to pretend that doesn’t sound as awkward as it does,” Emma says with a smile, then presses her lips against his cheek. “Now, go! Have fun! It’s not every day you get to ride snowmobiles with your brother across military fields in England.”

“You’re very right, Swan,” Liam comments, flashing her a smile before he turns back to his truck and makes his way back across the parking lot. “Now, come on!”

But, instead of rushing off, Killian turns to Emma, wrapping his arms around her as he presses his lips against her forehead. “I really am sorry, love. If I had known I was going to go on this strange adventure today, I definitely would have told you.”

“How would you have known? Does your brother suddenly control the weather?”

He turns around towards Liam, still making his way back across the parking lot, and then back to Emma, who he leans closer to and whispers, “Would you really be surprised if he did?”, which makes her smile.

“Honestly, no, I really wouldn’t. Now go! Have fun! Be safe! Don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t want to do.”

“He already is,” he says, pressing a kiss on her forehead, but she wraps her hands around his neck, her fingers threaded through his hair.

“I’ll be here when you get back. I have work that I need to catch up on anyway, so you would just be bored here with me.”

“Doubtful, love.”

Rolling her eyes at him, she pulls herself up on her tiptoes and finds his lips with hers. It’s soft, timid, but doesn't fail to start a fire between them--one that Emma pulls away from before it lights the whole town on fire.

“Just go! He’s waiting for you,” she says, their foreheads pressed together, and as much as he wants to pull her to him and share the kiss she deserves, he does not fight her on it, just kisses her gently again and turns away from her.

And if either of them had known what was going to happen, they surely would have kissed the way they both wanted to.


	10. Chapter Nine: Emma

“No, no, you don’t understand! I need someone to answer me!” Emma is hysterical, more hysterical than she remembers ever being - or ever needing to be. But right now, more than anything else, she needs to be hysterical.

“I told you, you’re not a relative, so there’s really nothing I can do for you, dear.” The doctor she approached has been far less than helpful, arguing with Emma in the same circle for at  _ least  _ the last five minutes. 

“Oh, believe me,  _ Dr. Whale _ , I heard what you said the last ten times you said it, but apparently you have not heard one word I’ve said to you! I’m the closest thing they have to a relative besides each other, okay? What do you do in the situations when your patients have no other relatives? Do you just let them go without any visitors, with no one being able to check on them and make sure they’re okay? What if they have a - a roommate or a best friend or a fiance, would you let those people visit them?” 

By the end of her speech, she is screaming in the doctor’s face, though his eyes are glued to his clipboard until her last few words, which make his eyes jump up to hers. 

“Fiance? You didn’t say anything about your being his fiance, because if you - if you are, that would be another story.”

Emma’s hands, previously being used to accentuate her anger, fall slack at her sides. 

“You’re telling me,” she says, her words coming slowly so as to not give away her newfound motive. “That if I would have told you I was his fiance ten minutes ago, we would have surpassed this whole conversation, and I would already be in there with Killian?”

“Of course, we definitely don’t want to keep loved ones separated.”

Emma sighs deeply, slowly, releasing the tension that’s built in her shoulders since she heard Liam’s voice on the phone. 

“Of course not. So I would really appreciate it if you could lead me to my fiance’s room, then?”

For the first time since she approached the doctor, he lowers his clipboard to his side, turning his full attention towards her, seemingly now that she is worth his attention, then smiles at her. “Definitely, ma’am, it’s just this way.” He opens the doors before the two of them, then gestures for her to lead him through them. 

When he leads her through the second door they pass, so close to where they wasted so much time arguing about finding him in the first place, she feels some sort of humorous irony in being so close to the only thing she wants, but still separated by what felt like so much - 

And then, as soon as she sees him there, all wrapped up and bandaged in the hospital bed, any thoughts about Doctor Whale and  _ humorous irony _ are gone.

“Killian,” she breathes, suddenly overcome by a debilitating tightness in her chest. and she practically falls into the seat next to Killian’s bed.  She can't take her eyes off him, save to smile softly at Liam across the room, who raises his hand in a greeting, but says nothing. “How is he?” she asks.

“He’s much better than he was when he was bought in a few hours ago. Still serious, but stable.” Dr. Whale consults his clipboard once more. “A few broken ribs, some internal bleeding, a fractured skull, plus he lost a lot of blood from the hand injury.”

“The - the hand injury?” she asks, her voice soft, but then she sees it: his left arm, which she just assumed was covered by the blanket. But it’s not; instead, right under the sleeve of his hospital gown, she sees the white of the gauze above his elbow. 

Or, better, above where his elbow  _ was _ .

But now, everything below his elbow is gone, capped by the bandages. 

“I'm really sorry you had to find out like this, Swan,” Liam says, and Emma turns to him just in time to see him shoot daggers with his eyes at the doctor when he opens his mouth. “But when his snowmobile hit the tree, it flipped over and somehow landed on his arm. Crushed the whole bloody thing, but if losing his hand is the worst thing that happened, then we're golden.”

Emma watches as the doctor turns his eyes up to Liam again, then quickly averts them again when their eyes meet. “If you'll excuse me,” he mumbles, then leaves the room without another word. 

When the door closes behind him, she turns to Liam, ready to spill everything about her day so far, but he beats her to the punch. “Did they give you any trouble getting in here?” 

She had already opened her mouth to speak, but snaps it shut before answering, hard enough to hear her teeth click against each other. “Actually, I had quite the argument with that doctor. He didn't want to let me in the room, since they only let family in the ICU, and I may have gotten a little hostile.”

“But you got yourself in here anyway.”

Emma reaches down and wraps her hand around Killian's, then pushes the hair off his forehead, smiling down at him. “Well, uh, I may have told him that Killian and I were engaged.”

“You always had a way with words that way, didn't you, Swan?”

She smiles across the bed at Liam, but then notices the blood seeping through the bandage around Liam's forehead, and her smile fades. Releasing Killian's hand from her own, she moves from the seat next to Killian to the seat next to Liam, resting her hand on his arm. “So what in the hell happened out there, Liam? All you said on the phone was that there had been an accident. And I need to know how you managed to get yourself a room in the ICU with him since you don't seem to be too _intensive_ yourself, because that's a story I'm sure I'm going to appreciate.”

Liam covers her hand with his own, then turns his eyes up to her, a smile covering his face but not reaching his eyes. “It was going really well for a while, riding around the property attached to the base. We were just… we were having fun, adventuring, until it started raining, and then the snow froze the water on top of it, and he - he lost control, and his snowmobile just wouldn't… wouldn't slow down, and he went right into that damned tree. I'm - “ He lets out a breath, then looks over at Killian for the first time, keeping his eyes on him. “When I saw that thing flip, land right on top of him, I thought I'd lost him. And there was blood, and the way he screamed…” His voice trails off, and with his eyes still trained on his brother’s bed across the room, but he does not seem to be seeing anything in the hospital room. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, squeezing his arm, a movement that apparently pulls Liam’s attention back to the present. “And that Killian’s… alive.” The word feels too big in her throat, a lump that she doesn’t seem to be able to swallow. 

“Look, Swan,” Liam says, a heaviness in his voice  that chills Emma down to the core, like all the warmth in the world is gone - and when she shivers, she feels like maybe it all could be. He takes his hand off hers, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger and pulls her gaze back to him, away from the bruised, bloodied, and battered younger Jones brother on the other side of the room. “He’s going to be fine.”

“But how do you know?” she whispers, her voice stuck in her throat, and it takes every ounce of energy left in her to keep herself from bursting into tears right where she is. 

“He’s a fighter, love. He always has been.”

Even her hard work to stop herself from crying doesn’t stop the first tear from falling down her cheek, and she raises her hand top stop it, but Liam beats her to it. 

“He looks awful,” she says after a few moments, trying to recollect herself before she becomes a blubbering mess, and she’s pretty sure she succeeds, though a few more tears fall across her cheeks. 

The sound that escapes the lips of Liam Jones is a terrifying mixture of laughter and a sob. “He really fucking does, doesn’t he?”

She gives him a moment to himself before she tries her hardest to change the subject. “So, you haven’t yet told me how you wormed your way into the ICU.”

A brief smile flashes across his face, a moment’s break for the sadness that has taken over him. “Honestly, it really didn’t take that much. I told them that I was his only relative on the continent, and then I said something about my position in the Navy, and then I passed out in the ambulance, and when I woke up, I was in this room and Killian was in surgery, and then they brought him in here and that was when I learned just how bad of a shape he was in.”

“You really should work on that story, you know. You could make it more colorful, swear at the ambulance drivers, knock out a doctor or something. Add some conflict.”

His mouth ticks flicks up again in a momentary smile, a staple in the facial expressions of the Jones brothers, and he shakes his head. “I’ll work on that for you, alright?”

 

 

When Dr. Whale violently pushes through the door of the hospital room, Emma has fallen asleep in the chair next to Killian’s bed, one hand holding her book in her lap and the other wrapped around Killian’s, clinging to it so tightly that her unconscious self may possibly believe that if she were to let go, he would just float away and disappear. It’s not until Whale is next to Killian, pressing his stethoscope against various parts of Killian’s body, then loses the stethoscope and opts for his hands that Emma finally wakes up, finding herself in a dizzy, middle-of-the-night haze. 

“Killian,” she breathes, jumping up from her position, and for a moment, she is completely disoriented, forgetting that she is not in her dorm room. At first, she remembers where she is, and it calms her until she realizes how late it is, and that Killian’s doctor is standing over him - and that can’t be good. “Doctor, what’s wrong?” 

“Please, Miss Swan, there’s no need to fret. We just had a few readings that I’m not quite happy with, so I’m just checking up on a few things.”

“What kinds of readings?”

“Oh, nothing too imminent, he might just have to go back to surgery in the morning to take care of some internal bleeding we may have missed the first time.”

“Internal bleeding? That - that sounds pretty imminent to me. Are you sure he’s going to be okay? He can wait until morning? If you know he needs surgery, then why wait? Wouldn’t it be better to just - to just take him now, before it gets worse?”

Dr. Whale reaches across the bed and sets his hand on Emma’s shoulder, suddenly stopping the waterfall of words that she didn’t realize was tumbling from her lips. 

“Miss Swan,” he says again, more sincerity in his voice than she is sure she has heard in the day she has spent in the hospital. “I promise you, he will be just fine if we wait until morning, especially since the surgical staff on right now is the emergency staff, if we wait until morning, he can have the same surgeon from earlier today, someone who will take his time.”

Taking a deep breath, she feels the warmth of the doctor’s hand on her shoulder, a weight that seems to keep her from losing her cool completely, and she smiles softly up at him. “Of course, doctor. I should -  I’m sorry, I shouldn’t question you or your judgement. I'm just... I'm so worried about him, and I love him so much, I -” 

And then, she realizes what she just said.  Of course -  _ of course _ \- she cares about him deeply. You don't go ten years being as close to someone as Emma was to Killian without caring about someone. 

But  _ love?  _ Does she love him? 

Why in the world wouldn’t she?

This is the question that she asks herself when she looks down at him as the doctor smiles at her before leaving them again, thankful that the only light in the room is that which spills through the door, a light that disappears when the door closes behind the doctor. And then she is left alone, just her and her thoughts and the moonlight and two unconscious Jones brothers. 

One of whom she is possibly, maybe,  _ definitely _ in love with.


	11. Chapter Ten: Killian

Killian has never been more nervous in his life. Today is not his first day of school, or even his first day at a new school. But for some reason, it is on his first day of tenth grade at Storybrooke High that he feels this level of nervousness, a nervousness that hits him deep in his gut, in ways that make him regret eating breakfast for the first time ever. 

He’s been called out before, when Brennan moved them across England in the middle of the year and he had to start sixth grade in a new school after Christmas break. Being called out as the new kid when your first day is in the middle of the year was, by far, the worst thing to ever happen to Killian Jones. Thankfully, when he walks into his new homeroom for the first time, no one calls him out. No one says anything to him, actually. In fact, no one is saying anything to anyone. More than half of the students have their heads down on their desks, or hidden behind laptops and books, or in their cellphones. Only a handful of people even look up at him as he walks in, and they all turn their attention back away from him almost immediately. 

And this is how most of the rest of his day goes, as well. He interacts with his teachers, sometimes with the students around him, and spends his lunch period huddled in the corner with his worn-down copy of _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ , his favorite book since childhood. 

It is not until the last period of the day that he finally walks into the only room that seems to calm him, the first class that does not quicken his heartbeat: advanced literature, held in a classroom that he has to go through the library to get to. 

Finally, the thing that he has waited all day for is here. Finally. 

The room is everything he expected it to be: a basic sized classroom, it's focal point a large, wooden table in the center surrounded by a dozen padded office chairs, stacks of books piled on the table, on the desk in the corner, and in the bookshelves that cover the back wall entirely. 

Killian loves it, wants to run his fingers over every spine of every book in the room, feel the words on the loved spines. 

He turns into the room, more excited than he has been the whole day - hell, probably for years, and turns to see the rest of the room, finding the other two walls to also be lined with shelves covered in more books. 

And this is when he sees her. She is gorgeous, perfect, practically radiating light, and he is amazed that he's gotten through a whole day at a school the size of Storybrooke High without seeing her yet. 

He takes the seat across from her, and she looks up at him, tapping the end of her pen against her front teeth, a movement she stops just long enough to smile at him and make his heart pound out of his chest and onto the table in front of them. 

Four more people file quickly into the room as the bell rings, followed by a tall, balding man in khaki pants, a dark green button-down, and a tie covered in pictures of fish. 

The room is silent. None of the students say a word, possibly all as afraid to break the silence as Killian is, not daring to move a muscle.

The blonde across the table from him has stopped tapping her pen. 

He feels the teacher's eyes on him, and he nervously turns his eyes up to meet his, a dark green made to look darker in the light of the room. His face is blank. They lock eyes for just a moment before the teacher turns to his next victim. 

No one says a word. 

The teacher looks at each student individually, spending a few moments intimidating them with his eye contact. He still gives nothing away with his face. 

No one moves a muscle. 

The dark green eyes do a quick sweep back around the table. Killian is watching him. So is the blonde. Everyone else has their eyes turned down, purposefully focusing on something other than the man standing at the end of the table. 

The room is silent. 

The teacher locks eyes with Killian again, quickly flashes him a soft, devilish smile, winks, and slams his briefcase on the table. 

The whole room jumps. One of the girls even lets out a scream. 

The blonde across the table laughs, the most perfect laugh Killian has ever heard. 

The teacher joins her. 

“I really just love that,” he says, his voice soft and slow and everything Killian expected it to be. Continuing, he presses his hand against his heart. “I am Mister Royer, though I'm expecting most of you to drop the “mister,” since most people do. And this year, we are going to read books. We're going to talk about books, argue about books, yell at each other about books. Usually at least one person cries about a book. We're going to mark up books, write about books, and just all together enjoy books. If that does not sound like something you want to do religiously for the rest of the year, I would suggest heading down to the guidance counselor and changing your schedule to another English class, because in this room, we are going to worship books. Everyone here okay with that?” 

His eyes do a sweep around the table. Killian smiles at him, and he smiles back. 

“Great. Excellent. Fantastic.” He pulls a pile of papers out of his briefcase, the most disorganized pile of papers Killian has ever seen coming out of a briefcase, and flips through it, tossing the ones he's not looking for onto the table in front of him, continuing to slowly list off synonyms for the word good as he does so. “Superb. Wonderful. Awesome.” Then he finds the one he is looking for, dropping the rest of them back into the briefcase before taking a moment to read over the paper in his hand. “Ah, yes. Okay, good. Archie?”

The room is stunned with confusion for a moment before a redheaded boy with wire-framed glasses slowly raises his hand. “Present?” 

“Marvelous. Zelena?”

Another redhead, this time a tall girl with bright blue eyes, raises her hand, less confused than Archie. “Hello.”

He looks down to the paper, then back up at her with a smile. “Hello. Fabulous. Welcome. Henry, nice to see you again.”

Henry looks up from the book that he has cracked open in front of him, smiling at the teacher, his dark hair falling over his eyes. “Same to you, Royer.” 

“Grand. Emma?”

The blonde across the table smiles at him, waving her hand. “Hey, Royer.”

Emma. Her name is Emma. Somehow it fits her perfectly, and Killian cannot imagine it being anything else. 

Mr. Royer returns her smile. “Brilliant. So nice to see you again, Swan. Glad you're in my class again.”

“As am I.”

“Glorious. And lastly, Mr. Jones?”

Killian raises his hand. “Present.” Somehow, Killian feels like his accent is stronger in this word than it has been the rest of the day, but that might just be because he has managed to spend the rest of the day without saying more than a handful of words. 

Mr. Royer smiles at him, as well, knitting his eyebrows as he searches for another word. After a moment, he decides on one. “Righteous. Welcome to America, Mr. Jones. How are you liking it here? Different than across the pond?”

Killian feels the heat rising through his body, to the tips of his ears and the curves of his cheeks, but when he turns towards the teacher, he does not seem to be calling him out, taunting him in any way; instead, his eyes are set on Killian, intrigued and waiting for an answer.

“It's definitely different here.” He holds up the copy of _20,000 Leagues_ he hasn't put in his backpack all day, pointing to it with his free hand. “Thankfully, the books are pretty much the same.”

The smile Mr. Royer gives him in a response is a genuine one, and he turns his eyes to the other students at the table, all of whom are holding smiles of the same caliber. 

“I think you and I are going to get along extremely well, Jones.” Mr. Royer says, then pulls a legal pad out of his briefcase, then the pen out of his pocket, which he clicks a few times. 

Killian's eyes wander from the teacher to the blonde across the table - Emma. She meets his eyes and smiles again, a smile that almost makes up for the awful rest of the day.

Maybe America won't be that bad. 

 

And it wasn't. Because of Emma Swan, America became at least tolerable. He had someone to sit with at lunch, someone in his study hall that occurred every other day, and even someone who was willing to walk the half-mile from the school to his house just to spend more time with him. 

It only took a few days for Killian to realize that he was incredibly, totally, and deeply in love with his best friend - hell, his only friend. 

So, after three weeks, he has made up his mind about asking her to homecoming (though homecoming is a concept he needed Henry to explain to him one day, after Emma mentioned it in passing.) He does not know when, and hasn't decided on how - all he knows is that he's going to. 

He brings her out to his father's fishing boat, docked on the water behind his house. The moon is right around half, still recovering from the fullness from the week before, but the stars that are out are perfectly seen from the boat, the only light around coming from the front porch, dull and practically nonexistent by the time it travels to the edge of the water. They are laying on the deck, staring up at the stars, Killian pointing out some of the constellations he recognizes from the time he spent studying them with Liam in England, though it will take some time to get used to them being in slightly different locations. 

He is not even sure how it happened; one moment, he was talking about the stars and his brother and the boat they had in England, and the next moment his words stopped abruptly when he felt her hand in his, soft and real and there. When he turns to her and smiles, her whole face is lit up in the light of the moon, smiling back at him; and before he can respond in any other way, she has filled the space between them, pressing her lips against his. 

  
  


Years fly by. Literal, actual, whole years, time that Killian got to spend with Emma by his side, fly by before him, moving too fast for him to appreciate every moment the way he wants to, but not stopping him from reliving the best moments, and the worst. Their first fight, over something so trivial that Killian cannot even remember what it is; Liam leaving. Their first time together, on a cold winter day when her parents were out of town, completely unplanned and completely perfect in the disastrous way every first time is; Emma confiding in him about her parents having another baby, something that devastates her more than she wants to admit. 

Graduating high school. Moving in together. Being so in love that all he wanted to do at the end of the day was go home and wrap your arms around her. 

And then, just like that, life slows down enough for Killian to catch up with it, and he is sitting next to her on the dock, his arm around her shoulders and her hand resting on his knee. 

“My father offered me a job, Emma,” he says softly, afraid of breaking the perfect, comfortable silence between them, but knowing that this conversation has already waited too long to be had. 

“But I thought your father was in New York?”

“He is in New York. And so is the museum that he wants me to run.”

She pulls away from him so she can turn her face towards him. “What?”

“He offered me a position at a research library museum in New York City. His company is funding it, or something like that. It’s - it’s perfect for me, and it comes with a place to live and a more than gracious salary.”

“You sound like you’re planning on taking the job.”

“I haven’t decided yet, but I think I am, actually.”

“And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“Emma, love, I’m telling you right now. He only told me about it a few days ago, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you without making you feel like I’m rushing you or pushing you in one way or another. The museum’s not opening for almost another year, so I wouldn’t have to make a decision for a while, he just wanted me to know that I had the position if I wanted it, but I need to let him know soon so he can - “

“No.” She cuts him off, the word hanging between them and threatening to pull their whole world apart. “I - I can’t, Killian. Don’t you understand that? I’ve spent my whole life in Storybrooke, have never even been out of Maine, and now you want me to leave everything I know behind and come with you to New York City? No.”

“Give it some thought, please, Emma, I need you to - “

“No,” she says again, just as sharply. “What were you going to do when I said no? You must have already given it some thought, you must know better than honestly think I was going to be okay with this.”

“Please don’t give me an answer right now, just take some time - “

“My whole life is here, Killian. What don’t you understand about that? My friends, my family, everything I have ever known is Storybrooke, Maine, and I’m not ready to part with that yet. So if you need to - if you need to be somewhere else, then you’re going to have to be there without me.” She  pushes herself up off the dock, swatting his hand away from hers when he tries to stop her; and he knows that she does not want him to see, but he can just make out her silhouette as she wipes the tears from her eyes before turning around the corner and out of his line of sight. 

 

She is sitting at their kitchen table when he gets home, after spending a bit longer than he meant to sitting at the end of the dock replaying the fight they just had over and over again, going over the pros and cons of New York. 

Pro: it’s the perfect job for him, he is more than qualified and would enjoy every moment of running the research library, which would make it more than a job. 

Con: by the looks of their night, it would mean leaving Emma behind. 

He doesn’t want to leave her behind. Never imagined having to do so, and isn’t even sure that he can. 

But this job is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do what he loves.

Emma is also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

And this is the circle he finds himself dizzied by, even on the drive home from the dock, up until the moment he sees her at the table in their kitchen, her red, blotchy face lit up by the lights shining in from the living room, though the lights in the kitchen are not on themselves. 

He can tell from her face that she has made up her mind, and that nothing he says will get her to change it. She always has been stubborn like that. 

“Emma,” he starts, his voice no more than a whisper, but at the same time, she also speaks, and does not stop after one word.

“You have to take the job. I realize that. But I - I can’t go with you. And I don’t expect you to choose between me and your future, so I did it already. I’ll move back home, and you can move to New York and live the life you deserve.”

She got through her words, better than he imagined she would, but her voice cracks on the last word right as the dam holding back her tears opens, and she breaks down in front of him.

He says nothing - there is nothing he can say that would change anything - but that does not stop him from taking her into his arms, lowering them to the kitchen floor, and sobbing right next to her, both of them knowing that this is the only move that makes any damn sense, even if it simultaneously seems to not make any sense at all. 

  
  


Two suitcases, a duffel bag, and three boxes. 

That’s all his life comes down to, loaded comfortably into the back of his Chevelle, the suitcases and one of the boxes in the trunk, the other two boxes and the duffel on the backseat. Everything he owns, all of his belongings, packed into a sports car that was never made to haul luggage, to be the sole vehicle used to move eight hours to a new life. 

Everything in his car, except the one thing he loves the most, who kissed him one last time before walking back to the porch, her red-rimmed eyes watching him in the rear-view mirror. 

He can’t not watch her. He keeps most of his attention on the road, the country curves that have become his home for the past seven years, but his eyes keep pulling back to the mirror, back to her, alone and trying her hardest not to cry on the porch of their house that isn’t their house anymore. 

And then he crests the hill, the mirror now only filled with the blue sky, and she is gone. 

  
  


_ “The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumors which agitated the maritime population, and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several states on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter.” _

He knows the words, has read them countless times, and knows the story by heart. And, just today, since he sat down in his very carefully-chosen chair, he’s read them at least two dozen times; but today, none of them are getting through to him. He’s read them over and over again, and none of them mean a thing.

Because today, he is too antsy, too worked up to allow any of the words to actually reach his brain and resonate. 

He has felt it since Miss French handed him the paper, since he read the name at the top and started wondering. It’s not her; there is no way in any universe that it is her. 

But when he looks up from his book for what seems like the thousandth time, turning his attention towards the customs desk once more, all of his dreams and nightmares come true simultaneously. 

Because it’s  _ her _ . Of all the Emma Swan’s in all the world, she is the one to walk into his gin joint.

Or something like that. 

Bloody  _ Emma Swan _ , the face that has haunted him for five years, is here in the London airport, filling out forms at the customs station right in front of his eyes. 

She has changed, grown up, matured. Because of course she has. Of course she looks different than she did the last time he saw her, because the last time he saw her she was holding back tears, breaking his heart and hers at the same time. 

But today, in front of his very eyes, she is back, more beautiful than ever. Taller, blonder, more grown up. 

_ Bloody hell. _

He watches as she hands her forms to the customs officer, who looks over them one more time, hands her a pile of paperwork back, and then she is done. 

His eyes are on her as hers scan the airport, looking for something, though she’s not entirely sure what it is. And when her eyes meet his, realize that it really is him standing in front of her, they grow wide.

Because the last thing she was expecting in England was him, was Killian Jones.

  
  


His breath catches in his throat as his eyes fly open. He is not in Storybrooke, or New York, or at the London airport. He is… somewhere else, somewhere dark and unfamiliar. Confused, delirious, head pounding. 

He only knows one thing: he is in a  _ lot  _ of pain. 

“Swan,” he whispers, remembering the dream, and nothing else, and closes his eyes again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with this, even with the erratic posting schedule! It's become my favorite story to write, and there is so much more in store!


	12. Chapter 11: Emma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Again, I apologize for how long this chapter has taken to be posted. Grad school and working got in the way, but now that I have a schedule somewhat worked out, it might go back to being weekly, but at least bi-weekly. Also, check me out on Tumblr (thejollyroger-writer) and be on the lookout for some new materials coming soon!

“What do you mean the machines aren’t telling you anything, doctor? Last night, he woke up, said my name, and went back to sleep.”

“Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Miss Swan?” 

“Of course I'm sure I wasn't dreaming!” She tries to keep her voice strong, but she feels it quaking. “It’s a little difficult to dream when you haven’t slept for three days.”

“I can vouch for that,” Liam says from behind her, still sitting in the seat under the window. 

“You told us that he should be out of the coma at least a week ago, and there’s been no movement, according to you! But I tell you that last night, he woke up from this coma that, according to you, he’s already supposed to be out of, and you try to talk down to me about it? God  _ damn  _ you, doctor.”

He opens his mouth as if to respond, but his eyes flash away from her face to somewhere behind her moments before she feels Liam’s hand on her shoulder. 

“Take a breather, Swan,” he says softly, squeezing her shoulder, and with one last glare in the doctor’s direction, she pushes past him and out of the room. 

She is ready to move down the hallway, towards the coffee maker that has become her second home for the month Killian has been in the hospital, but she stops in her tracks when she hears Dr. Whale talk to Liam.

“She sure is a fiesty one, huh?”

With her back pressed against the wall just outside the doorway, she closes her eyes and can almost see the way Liam must be staring at him right now, the deadset of his jaw, the glint in his eyes, almost the same perfect blue color as Killian’s. She can’t help but smile. 

“He’s just stressed, doctor. You told her -- both of us, actually -- that he would be awake in less than a month, and we’re now a week past that. Needless to say, she’s got a lot on her mind. Just give her some space. Now, I do believe you owe us an explanation.”

“I really don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Jones. I don’t want to tell you to expect the worst since it’s already been five weeks, but that is, usually, what we’ll tell you by this point.”

With her eyes closed, Emma’s head falls, her chin hitting her chest. Squeezing her hands into fists, she hits the wall behind her, then remembers that she’s not supposed to be standing outside eavesdropping on Liam’s conversation and takes off down the hallway to the coffee machine. 

Five weeks is a damn long time to think about feelings, but it’s the time Emma has had. Just as much as she’s been thinking about her future, she’s been remembering the past, the time she spent with Killian in Storybrooke: meeting him, falling for him.

Falling in love with him. 

Six weeks. It was six weeks between the first time they kissed, the night they started dating, and the first time she told him she loved him. It was on her birthday, the day he asked his father to borrow the fishing boat and take her out on the water for a candlelit dinner, and though it was freezing (as it tends to be in Maine at the end of October), every moment of it was  _ perfect _ , just spending the evening alone with him and the water, the first time they were ever able to really be alone, not worrying about parents or siblings or friends. It was just the two of them, together under the moon, and though they both swear that it was never the plan, they shared their first time together on the deck of the fishing boat, followed by Emma and Killian almost simultaneously professing their love to one another. 

Six weeks was all it took for Emma to realize that she loved him when she was fifteen, a decision that she never, once, doubted, even as she made him leave her behind in Storybrooke. 

Now, she’s been in England for nine weeks, after being away from him for four years. Nine weeks, seven of which they shied away from their feelings for each other. Seven weeks since the night she went on a date with August, and ended up at the kitchen table with Killian, baring their souls to the other. And five weeks since they kissed each other on the couch, fell asleep together, and Emma woke up the happiest she feels she has ever been -- or, at least been in quite a while. 

(About four years, actually.)

Five weeks since Liam took him out snowmobiling, and the next time she saw him, he was unconscious in the hospital room. 

Normally, Emma believes, it would take her more than seven weeks to know she was in love again, though she has never had the opportunity to test this hypothesis. And, perhaps, if it wasn’t Killian,  _ her  _ Killian, who she had already loved in so many ways for so long, it wouldn’t have happened that fast. But, with her awful hospital coffee in hand, she turns the corner back into the hospital room and sees him there, so helpless and powerless -- the two things Killian Jones hated being more than anything else -- and she knew that, at some point in the last seven weeks, it had happened again, though she may not be able to pinpoint just when: she had fallen back in love with him, as if she had never fallen out of love in the first place. 

  
  


“How is he doing, sweetie?” Her mother’s voice on the other end of the line was soft, and she could almost see the way her nose curled up in her worry. 

“Nothing’s really changed here, actually. He’s still in the coma, Liam’s still trying to spend as much here as he can. I just - I really need him to get better.”

It happened because she didn’t know who else to call. She wasn’t even sure if her mother would answer when she called, with the five hour time difference, but it was 9:30 in England and hopefully she had just gotten home when Emma called -- and she was right. She had been meaning to call her anyway, as she promised she would weeks ago, but a few quick texts and a call the week Killian was admitted was enough to pause their regularly scheduled calls. 

“What about your classes? And your job? How far did you say it was from the hospital to the campus?”

“Where was he when we last talked? Because now he’s at the hospital affiliated with the campus, still in the ICU, though. So it’s about a five minute drive, and Liam’s been shuttling me around to give him something to do.”

“So you’re still getting to your classes, and to the office and everything?”

“Belle understands and has given me less hours the past few weeks so I can be here more often, but I’m almost always in class, and all three of the professors let me keep my phone out still in case Liam or the hospital calls.”

Mary Margaret hums in response. “That’s nice of them.”

“Well, they care about him, too, mom.”

As she says this, her eyes flit across the room to his bed. When her mother says nothing in response, she stands up, holding the phone against her cheek with one hand and pressing her other against his cheek, pushing his hair back up off his forehead. 

“Can I tell you something?” she asks, her voice soft, and though she can’t quite define why, she feels a lump forming in her throat, threatening to bubble to the surface and let out all of the emotion she has been holding the last few weeks. 

“Of course, sweetie. You know you can tell me anything.”

She had told her mother about the conversation they had the night of her date with August, but nothing beyond that. Somehow, it didn’t feel like the right place, time, or way to divulge the moments she shared with him on the couch when it snows, not until she had the opportunity to make sure she was going to have more of them. 

“I think -- I’m still in love with him. Or in love with him again. Whatever, the descriptors don’t really matter. But I -- yeah, I love him, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if I never get the chance to tell him that, to know that he knows that.”

Mary Margaret is silent on the other end of the line, until she hears her sniffle. “This might sound crazy, Emma, but have you tried telling him that?”

“Mom, come on, that’s…” she starts, but the words stop coming as she thinks about the story she knows her mother is going to tell her:

“Remember when you were little, and your father was in the hospital after getting shot? And they told us that they were doing everything they could to help him, but they would make no promises?”

“Mm-hm.” Her eyes are fixed on his face, and she doesn’t know if she would be able to pry them away if she tried. 

“Do you remember what we did?”

The lump in her throat has reached the surface, and when she recalls the story, her words are thick. “We told him that we needed him to come back to us. That we loved him but needed him back.”

She swallows, trying to repress the tears, but it doesn’t work. 

“Remember what happened?”

“We left for the night, and when we were getting ready the next morning, they called you and said he had woken up.” A tear falls down the side of her cheek, and she doesn’t even try to stop it -- it won’t be the last one of the night. “Thanks, mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I love you, sweetie.”

“Love you, too, mom,” Emma whispers, then hangs up the phone, sticking it in the back pocket of her jeans before turning all of her attention to him. 

It’s not that she hadn’t tried talking to him before. She read some of her papers aloud to him, or the readings that she needed to do for school. Especially everything she needed to read for her Shakespeare class, because just having him there next to her made her understand the materials better. She had told him about her day, about her grades, about the underclassmen that find their way into her office. But, for some reason, she had never even thought about telling him about her feelings, had not remembered the memory her mother had brought to the surface from when she was six years old. 

And now, all she wants to do is tell him how she feels. So she does. She pulls the chair closer with her foot, her hand still on his cheek, and another tear falls to the ground. With her other hand, she takes his, before finally just pressing her face into his chest, leaving tear stains on his hospital gown. 

“Please, Killian,” she whispers, a soft plea against his skin. “I need you to come back to me. I need you here, to hear - to know how I feel, and let me know that I’m not absolutely insane for loving someone as much as I love you. Because I do, Killian. I love you with everything I am, and I need you to wake up so I can tell you that, can show you how much you mean to me.”

She turns her head towards his face, watching his slow, soft breaths, hearing his heart on the monitor, but he doesn’t move. As much of a miracle as it would have been, she wasn’t anticipating it to happen as soon as she spoke, but part of her couldn’t help but hope. 

Slowly, her breaths begin to match his, softer and smoother, parts of his gown still wet from her tears, and when she can’t keep her eyes open anymore, she folds her arms under them, a makeshift pillow on top of his chest, and falls asleep. 

 

It doesn’t last more than a few hours, but she appreciates every moment of it. The wing has grown dark, turning off many of its lights to allow the patients to rest, and his hospital door is almost completely closed. The light from the machines, plus the soft lights coming through the window off of the town, are just enough to light up his face enough for Emma to make out his features. Sitting up to stretch her back, she presses a kiss to his temple, then another to his hand. His stubble has grown out over the past five weeks, and she racks her nails through the dark, coarse hair that she finds there before kissing him again on the lips. 

Checking her phone plugged into the wall, she finds an email from a sophomore she has been working with in the library, plus another from Belle. It’s just after one in the morning, and neither of them seem important enough to need a response at the moment, so she pushes herself off the chair, her hands against her lower back so she can stretch out the muscles that have tightened themselves there from her sleeping position, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“You’re lucky I love you, Jones, because you very well might be the death of my back.”

“As long as you promise not to change your mind.” His words are so quiet that she almost does not hear them; and when she does, she doesn’t believe they’re real. Her movements stop abruptly, her back still stretched out over her hands, and her eyes widen as she turns around to face him. In the low light of the room, she can just make out the weak smile on his face, his eyes slowly opening and closing a few times before they finally settle on her. 

“Killian,” she breathes, filling the space between her and the bed, her hands feeling as much of him as she can, as if he’ll disappear if she stops. “You’re - you’re awake.” She takes his face in her hands, a smile spread across her face, and kisses him without hesitation. 

“Aye, love, and still in a fragile state.” He winces as her fingers find the wounds on his head, still healing, and she pulls back, taking a step away from the bed, but he reaches his hand out and finds hers with it. “Now, what is this I heard about you loving me?”


	13. Chapter Twelve: Killian

The first thing he feels are her lips, pressed against his forehead, then against his hand before her nails are against his cheek. Then she is gone and he is no longer able to feel her presence. It takes a while to open his eyes, then a few moments more for them to adjust enough to see her across the room, her silhouette visible in the light coming through the curtains from the town outside. 

She is here with him, no matter what has happened to him, however long it’s been since the last thing he remembers, which is… 

He takes a moment to remember what happened to him, but the last thing he can remember is waking up with her on the couch, the feel of her on his chest and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. 

When she finally says something, stretching her lower back over the palms of her hands, he almost doesn’t hear her: “You’re lucky I love you, Jones, because you very well might be the death of my back.”

He can’t keep himself from smiling, watching her across the room. Because he may not remember how he got into this godforsaken hospital, but he does know one thing, beyond the sheer amount of pain he finds himself in: Emma is here with him, and he is still in love with her. 

A feeling that she, apparently, reciprocates. 

“As long as you promise not to change your mind.” He doesn’t know what made him say it, and the dryness of his throat, the fact that just these few words make it hurt, tells him that it may have been longer than he thinks since the last time he spoke. After a moment, she finally whips her head around to face him, eyes wide, as if she doesn’t believe that he actually said anything.

She probably doesn’t believe it, actually, he realizes, watching her eyes reflect the little light in the room as they widen towards him. It only takes her three steps to be beside his bed again, and as she breathes his name, her hands touch as much of him as she can: his chest, his arms, his stomach. She runs her fingers through her hair, then finally sets her hand on his cheeks, smiling down at him. “You’re—you’re awake.” She leans down towards him and presses her lips against hers, perhaps a bit harder than she meant to in his state, then pulls back just far enough to look into his eyes. 

“Aye, love, and still in a fragile state.” He is made aware of a large cut on his cheek when her thumb runs over it, causing him to wince — a movement that makes him hurt even more. She pulls her hand back in a flash, afraid to hurt him even more in her excitement, but he reaches his hand out and grabs her wrist, threading his fingers through his own. He had spent years hoping she would return to him, and weeks having her within his reach. Now that he knew she reciprocated his feelings, wanted to be with him as much as he with her, there’s no way that he is  _ ever  _ going to let her go. “Now, what is this I hear about you loving me?” he asks with a chuckle, which he realizes causes the  _ most  _ pain since he woke up. 

She rolls her eyes, but smiles warmly down at him, carefully sitting on the edge of the bed, trying as hard as she can not to bump him, but he wraps his arm around her waist, taking her hand in his again, and pulls her towards him, not yet understanding the intensity of his injuries — until she loses her balance and falls into his ribs, her other hand shooting out behind her to stop her from falling on top of him completely. 

When he reaches his arm out to try to brace her back, he notices his left arm for the first time. 

Or, his lack thereof. 

Emma lets out a deep breath, relieved that she stopped herself from  _ really  _ hurting him, but when she resituates herself and turns back to him, his face is painted with something that Emma can only describe as  _ absolute mortification.  _

“Swan,” he whispers, and she feels his right arm tighten around her waist, watches as his jaw tightens for just a moment, his eyes set behind her, before turning them up to her. “What happened to me?”

It is just about the last question she expected from him, though she’s not sure why. Of  _ course  _ he needs to know what happened to him, but she never imagined that he would forget all of it. 

“You — there was an accident. It was snowing, and Liam rented snowmobiles for the two of you to ride out near his base. You lost control, slid all over the ice until you hit a tree.”

“And Liam?” She can tell by the way he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down his throat, with his eyes squeezed shut, that he immediately thinks the worst. 

“Liam’s fine,” she says, pressing the tips of her fingers against his cheek, and she feels as he lets out a shaky deep breath before slowly opening his eyes again. “He hit the same patch of ice, but he just hit a bank. Concussion and a broken arm, but he’s all fixed up by now and out of the hospital.” She pulls back, searching her pockets for her cell phone. “I should call him, actually. Tell him you’re awake. He’s been more worried about you than I have, especially since he passed over the threshold of when the doctor said you would most likely wake up.”

“How long ago was the accident?” he asks, his words soft, as if he is afraid to learn the answer. 

“Five weeks.”

She watches the light shift across his jaw when he clenches it again, silent for a moment before he asks, “And what else happened to me? You know, besides the obvious,” he says, his eyes behind her again, and she strains herself around to see him looking at what’s left of his arm. 

She nods. “Well, you had a skull fracture and some broken ribs that caused internal bleeding.”

“Of course,  _ that  _ must be why it hurts when I laugh.”

She tries not to laugh at this comment, knowing that it would only cause him to do the same, but a chuckle still escapes her lips, causing exactly what she was trying to stop. 

“That’s no fair, love,” he says, trying his best to hold in the laughter, if only to stop himself from the pain he knows it’s going to cause. 

“Let me call Liam, Killian. He’s worried sick about you. The only reason he’s not here is because the base wouldn’t let him take any more time off, and it almost killed him.” Finding her phone in her back pocket, she removes it as carefully as she can, but Killian sets his hand on top of it, pushing it down to her lap. 

“If you don’t mind, darling, I would rather like to let you have me all to yourself tonight.” She recognizes the roughness of his voice, something she had become all too comfortable with all the years they were together; but given that one, he can still barely move and two, they  _ are  _ still in the hospital, she just smiles down at him again. 

“Your ribs are broken, Killian,” she says pointedly. 

He raises his hands, trying his best to seem innocent. 

“Don’t think I don’t recognize that gleam in your eye. I  _ have  _ been in love with you for a very long time.”

At her words, the aforementioned gleam disappears, melting into something more serious, more honest.

They are silent for a few moments, simply  _ looking  _ at the other as if something in their eyes could unlock the secrets of the world. 

For Killian, they do. 

“ _ One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth _ ,” he whispers finally, trying his very best to move over on the hospital bed to make room for her, and her movements to lay down beside her are the slowest and most careful she’s sure she has ever taken. 

“Okay, so that one’s new,” she comments, resting her cheek on his chest, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. 

“What?”

“You didn’t use to quote Shakespeare when you’re tired.”

“You’ll find that some things about me have changed, love, but I can assure you that my adoration for you is not among them.”

  
  


Two days later, while he is up and walking around the hospital room beside his physical therapist, a tall blonde man named Kristoff, Emma is perhaps struggling more than he is, her eyebrows knitting furiously and her pen tapping against her front teeth as she tries her very best to understand exactly what she is trying to read. 

Killian has chosen the perfect moment to regain consciousness, and once Kristoff had helped him settle back into his bed, she removes one of her headphones and turns her eyes toward him, pleading. 

“Killian, I need to ask you a favor, and I need you to not make fun of me for it.”

When he turns towards her, one eyebrow raised halfway up his brow, she holds up the book hidden in her lap, and even though he knows she is enrolled in a Shakespeare class, he does not expect what he finds on the cover of her book: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“I know you’ve been in a coma for five weeks, and I don’t want you to think that I’m just using you for my own need, but I need  _ help _ ,” she says, and the smile that covers his face is as far from mocking as he can make it.

“You came to the right source, love. Where are you in the play?”

“I’m in the middle of act two, but honestly… I’ve never struggled with anything as much as I’m struggling with this. And I studied Chaucer in college.”

He chuckles at her, an action that has slowly begun to hurt less as his body finally lets itself heal. 

“How in the world is this your favorite play?” 

He pats the bed next to him, calling her next to him, but he is silent for a moment, his eyes set on her as she gathers up her book and pile of pens and post-it notes and makes her way over to him from the makeshift desk she has set up in the room. Even as she slides onto the hospital bed beside him, pulling the table over the two of them to set everything down, he just watches her. 

And then she watches him, partially heartbroken, as he moves his right arm to find his left wrist, to thumb over the tattoo that has come to mean so much to both of them. But, of course, he can’t, because his left wrist  _ no longer exists.  _ Finally, his eyes leave her face, turning down towards his side, still surprised by his missing appendage. He holds his right hand out in front of him, looking at it as if for the first time. Liam has offered to help him pay for the prosthetic he’s asked for, but that still does not change the fact that he needs one in the first place. 

When he does finally speak, his words are soft, moments away from breaking down completely. “I read it for the first time when I was a senior, remember? For the senior research paper. And there was just something about it that I couldn’t get enough of. I used it again in college for two different projects, but it wasn’t until I was working in New York that it really hit me how similar to our story the play is. Or, the story I was hoping ours would turn into. The stars on this sleeve — well, what was a sleeve, were based on the sky on two different nights: your birthday, the night we first… professed our love for the other, among other things.” The corner of his lips twitch up into a smile, remembering the night. “And midsummer in New York, when I realized that no matter what happened, I was always going to love you.”

Emma smiles at him for a moment, then turns her eyes to the book in front of them as she starts flipping through it to find the page she was looking for, the quote that stuck out to her and immediately reminded her of their relationship. Act one, scene one, line 134. She beings to read it, and he joins her: 

“ _ For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth. _ ”


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Emma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual grad school keeps getting in the way of writing about grad school, and for that, I apologize. But either way, here it is: the next chapter! Please keep the comments coming, they are my life's blood and each and every one of you is helping me survive. Come chat with me on tumblr: thejollyroger-writer

“Now, Mr. Jones,” Dr. Whale announces, sweeping through the door unannounced, and both of the Jones brothers whip their heads to face him. “You've been cleared for visitors, but I would suggest only taking a few at a time and making sure that you have plenty of time between them so as to not overexert yourself.”

The evening before, Whale had cleared him from the ICU, fitting him with a temporary prosthesis after wheeling him down to his new room.

(He had learned that he may not hate very many things, but pushing its way to the top of this short list is the wheelchair.)

He turns to Emma, sitting across the room at the makeshift desk in front of her laptop, a smile on his face—the most genuine smile that Emma's seen in the week and a half since he woke up. He's been holding back from her, refusing to speak his mind, and she believes that he thinks he's being sly. But she knows better.

His smile takes her by surprise, and she feels her breath catch in her chest.

"Good thing that we know someone who prides herself in her ability to make schedules." After raising his eyebrows at her for a moment, he turns back to the doctor. “How soon can they start coming?”

Whale smiles at him, also in rare form. “This is just your warning before we let the crowd in from outside.”

Turning on his heel with the tails of his lab coat flying out behind him (a movement that Emma believes is Whale’s favorite), he leaves the three of them as they were.

Liam looks at his brother, then snaps to Emma and back again, but neither of them realize it: they are too busy smiling at the other. After a moment, Emma fishes her cell phone out of her back pocket before prompting it to call Elsa. Crossing the room to sit next to him on the bed, she pushes his hair off his forehead, smiling down at him, and he takes her hand, pressing his lips against her knuckles.

“Elsa! Good news!” Emma starts, making sure her friend knows not to expect the worst. “Killian's out of the ICU and into a regular room for another week or two, but the doctor has approved him for visitors.”

“Emma, that's excellent!”

She can’t help the smile that spreads across her face, because it really _is_ excellent, and she feels the pad of Killian’s thumb toying with the edge of her shirt, warm against her lower back as if reminding her that he’s really there, really awake.

“When can we come see him? I know there are a lot of people here worried about him.”

“That’s actually what I’m calling you about. Would you be able to come over today? In the next few hours, whenever you’re available?”

“I mean, Emma, I’m flattered, but shouldn’t Killian’s friends be first? Robin and Will and Jeff? Not that I don’t want to come, because you both know that I do, but—”

Emma stops her before she can go any further. “We want you to make a schedule, Els. To keep him from being overwhelmed. When it comes to organizing things, there’s no one better than you.”

Emma can practically see her blushing on the other end of the line, turning her porcelain skin the most obvious shade of red, especially compared to her silver hair and her light eyes. After a moment, she finally says, “Well, when you put it that way… I’ll be there in about an hour, once I finish everything here. Are you telling everyone?”

“He’s calling Robin and Will next, but other than that, I think we’re just going to wait until you’re ready to put everything together so he’s not overwhelmed from the get-go.”

Wanting to see his response to this, she turns to face him, a shadow of a smile on her lips, and she watches as his eyes go wide. Obviously she knows Jeff, and she met Robin once when he crashed on the couch after a particularly grueling night out (plus a more-than-embarrassing fiasco involving the lock on her bathroom door and a hopefully-still-too-drunk Robin) but Will was still a mystery to her, only ever described in harrowing stories where he drinks too much and has no plan for his life. Emma wasn’t sure why, but she felt like Killian was trying to keep her away from Will, perhaps too embarrassed by his antics to introduce her to them.

But there’s no getting away from it now, and when the tip of his tongue juts out to swipe across his bottom lip as he shakes his head at her, she knows that he knows.

“I’ll see you in about an hour then?” Emma asks, smiling down at him, and Elsa hums on the other end of the line.

“See you soon!” she quips, but does not hang up the phone fast enough to stop Emma from hearing her yell “Oh, I’m so excited!”

Handing the phone to Killian, she does not even attempt to hide the smile on her face. “Now, you should call Robin and Will.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*

When Will and Robin burst into the room together half an hour later, Killian is almost asleep, curled up against Emma in the hospital bed, her Shakespeare book in her lap with her arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“Bloody hell, man,” the man she assumes is Will yells, pushing into the room, Robin chasing after him, and Killian jumps up in the bed, groaning as the top of his head makes contact with her chin. “Two months and all you manage to do is have your girl call Robin, we get a few updates through Jeff and Elsa, and then all of the sudden, you call him and tell him to come and see you?” Will jumps up onto the edge of the bed, and Emma is sure for a terrifying moment that the whole thing is about to collapse beneath them—and judging by the look on Robin’s face, he thinks the same thing.

“Jesus, Scarlet, give the guy some space, he’s been in an accident,” Robin says softly, pulling him by the collar off of the bed.

“That’s not a good enough reason to not hear from him for two months, the bloody git.”

_Five seconds_ , Emma thinks. It took five seconds for Emma to realize why Killian is so embarrassed by Will Scarlet. And she has loved every moment of it.

She thinks.

“Christ, Scarlet, relax,” Killian says finally, his voice weak, but Emma hopes it’s just thick from exhaustion.

The boys must sense the same thing, and they turn their attention towards Emma, a soft smile spread across Robin’s face; but the look in Will’s eyes has nothing _soft_ about it.

“So that makes you the girl then, eh?”

Killian turns to her, too, her arm still wrapped around his shoulders, and he rests his hand on her leg.

“That makes me the girl,” Emma repeats, turning to smile at him, and he presses his lips against her shoulder.

“About bloody time, you know?” Will asks, and Emma bites the inside of her cheek to stop it from releasing the laugh that wells up in her chest when Robin reaches out to slap the back of his head.

Killian does not try to stop the laugh.

“Hello, Emma,” Robin says pointedly, glaring at Will for a moment before his eyes find hers again, the rush of red to his cheeks a sure sign that he might remember more about the night he slept on the couch than she thought he might. “Nice to, uh, see you again.”

“Oy, what the hell, man!” Will yells again, and Emma tries to avoid the knowing smirk of Killian, who she’s recalled the story to more than once. “Has everyone else met her already? Am I the only one who has never met her?”

“Aye, because you’re a damn child, Scarlet,” Killian quips, already sounding a hundred times stronger than the last words he spoke, and Will turns his gaze back to him, a comeback already on the tip of his tongue, but something stops them from tumbling out.

Looking at Killian, his eyes grow wide, and he takes a step back, his hand reaching out to clutch Robin’s wrist.

Emma lets out a deep, shaky breath, knowing full well what Will’s eyes are locked on. It’s exactly what Killian was worried about.

“What the hell happened to you, mate?”

Killian’s eyes fall to his lap, where his fingers are toying with the fingers on the prosthetic they’re lending him until the one he has ordered arrives. Unlike Will, Robin keeps his eyes on Killian, shaking his hand out of Will’s grasp to move towards the bed to take a seat next to him.

Feeling his presence, Killian turns his eyes to Robin, a shadow of a smile crossing his face before he turns away again.

The room is silent for a moment, save the beeping from the machines, and when he does finally speak, his voice is quiet. “Honestly, I don’t remember very much of what happened, but it was… it was bad. Something about a snowmobile and ice and a tree, gave me a concussion and broke some ribs and apparently the bloody thing landed on my arm.” He holds up the prosthetic, momentarily flicking his eyes to Will, then to Robin, before they fall to the bed again.

“They had to take it off. It was beyond repair, and they’re—my new one should be here in a day or two.”

The room is silent again.

“I’m so sorry, mate,” Robin whispers finally, and moments later, the door bursts open again, revealing Elsa, a bright smile taking up her whole face and a drink carrier filled with coffee in her hand.

“Killy!” she exclaims, and Will pushes past her and out of the room, causing the smile on her face to falter for just a moment before her eyes find Killian’s again. “It’s so nice to finally see you!” Crossing the room, she gently hugs him with one arm, then begins handing out the cups from the carrier: a hot chocolate with a shot of espresso for Emma, what she assumes to be a tea with cream for Killian, and a cappuccino for herself. Pulling the fourth cup out of the carrier, she turns to Robin. “It’s, uh, just black. I assumed Liam would be here, but if you want it, it’s yours.”

“Perfect.”

Together, the four of them—with Robin helping simply because he’s there—put together a schedule of times for people to come and visit him, giving him enough time between them so as to not overwork himself for the next seven days.

“Because hopefully after that, I’ll be out of this godforsaken place.”

 -*-*-*-*-*

The schedule starts the very next day, beginning at noon to give Killian enough time in the morning for breakfast and physical therapy, especially since his myoelectric prosthesis arrived that evening and would be fit during his PT with Kristoff.

“It might take a few weeks to get it to learn and adapt to the nervous system, but there’s no reason to keep you here for all that,” Kristoff told him, strapping the machine onto his arm, but Killian didn’t care.

“Just get me out of here.”

Liam is the first to arrive that day, while Killian and Kristoff are learning the basics of the prosthesis, around ten o'clock. Without a word, he sits himself down at the desk in the corner and pulls out his laptop and three manila folders full of paperwork—work which he opted to do in order to spend the day in the hospital with his little brother, since Emma was, in her own words, "drowning in work." She had done the same for him quite a few times since they found themselves in this scenario, both worried to leave him alone, so the least he could do for her was pack up his paperwork and spend his morning in the corner of the hospital room.

At least here, he dictated his own lunch break.

And that is exactly where he is two hours later when Elsa pops her head into the room, always the lifesaver with a cup of coffee for him in her hand, and a tea for Killian in the other.

"Bloody brilliant," he mumbles, taking the cup from her as she hands Killian his tea.

Elsa skips over his comment, moving directly to business. "Robin was supposed to come this morning, but once Ruby learned that he saw you yesterday, she went ballistic and convinced him to switch with her since she hasn't seen you in, and I quote, _Goddamned forever, God damn it_." She says Ruby's words in her best monotone as if she was reading them, pulling a chuckle from both Jones boys. "She's coming with Jeff and Belle."

This makes Killian sit up in bed, turning his attention away from his arm for the first time since Kristoff left the room. "Belle? Why is Belle coming?"

Intrigued by his brother's question, Liam also stops what he's doing, but all Elsa can do is sigh before Ruby's voice becomes audible in the hallway outside the room.

"Listen, Hatter, none of us have seen him. Just because you think you're somehow more his friend than I am means nothing compared to the fact that his apparently suddenly okay enough to take visitors." When she turns the corner into the room and sees all three sets of eyes on her, She stops moving, her mouth hanging open, and if Jeff hadn't squeezed past her into the room first he most likely would have run squarely into the back of her. For a moment, she in taken aback, frozen in her state of stupor; but it only lasts for that moment before she blinks and smiles at Killian and it is over.

"I'm so glad you're not dead!" she says, moving further into the room, and Liam rolls his eyes, sitting back down at the desk.

"What the hell, Ruby?" Jeff asks, his own mouth hanging open at her, but Killian surprises them both with a laugh.

"Aye, as am I."

Beaming, Ruby turns to Jeff. "See? "she says, as if she has won some sort of argument. "He's perfectly fine."

“I told you that letting them ride together was a bad idea!" Like with Ruby, everyone in the room hears Belle's easily recognizable voice in the hallway outside the room, and Ruby just rolls her eyes at her words.

But it is not Belle who walks through the door first, it's Emma, and Killian's face brightens seeing her there after thinking that she was not going to make it to the hospital until after her class. His eyes do not leave her as she crosses the room to him, a smile on her face as she weaves her fingers through his hair.

And because they are solely focused on each other, they do not immediately pick up on the change in the room when Belle appears, though Elsa, Ruby, and Jeff _certainly_ do.

"Hello, Killian," Belle says, a smile spread across her face, and when she notices Liam in the corner of the room, she extends the smile to him as well. At this gesture, he jumps up from his seat, papers going in all different directions, and _just_ manages to save his coffee cup before it topples to the floor.

Blushing from the sudden rush of attention from the older Jones brother, Belle says, "You must be Mr. Jones, Killian's brother?"

He smiles, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck—both Jones boys have their nervous ticks—and crosses the room to offer his hand to her. "Please, ma'am, just call me Liam." He, too, is blushing, a feat Emma never would have thought possible, would never have even believed had she not seen it herself.

And now the whole room has experienced it.

"Belle French," she offers, taking his hand in her own. "I run the program Killian's in. Well, the program they're all in, actually."

Still holding her hand, Liam comments, "You definitely don't look old enough to be their professor." He means it as a compliment, no doubt, but something in his voice, mixed with his nervousness, makes it come off a little odd. They hold intense eye contact for a moment, until Killian breaks it with a cough.

Trying to keep his cool, Liam goes back to the desk, beginning to straighten the paperwork that he has sent flying and everyone else turns back to Killian.

“Glad to see you’re still kicking, my friend,” Jeff says—and since it is basically the same thing Ruby got so much for just moments ago, she glares at him, hitting his arm with the back of her hand.

“And with a fancy new piece of machinery,” Belle quips, her eyes darting between Killian and his brother.

Killian holds it up, and by the look in his eye, Emma thinks he might even be proud of it, an excellent comparison from how he felt yesterday when Will shut down.

“Yes, yes, Liam fought for the newest technology, so by all means, let the Luke Skywalker-Cyborg-Captain Hook jokes commence.”

“Oh, Captain Hook! I like that one,” Ruby comments, a wicked grin spread across her face. “I’ve always seen you as the captain of our department anyway.”

“Oi, what does that make me?” Belle asks with a laugh.

“Monarch,” Killian says quickly, then flourishingly bows—or, tries as well as he can for being in a hospital bed. “Your _majesty_.”

“Brother, if you marry into a monarchy, does that make you king? Or prince?” Killian asks, pointing his smile across the room at his brother, who, once again, stands up too quickly. This time, it is not the papers which fall to the floor, but the coffee cup, landing on the floor with a _thwunk_ , the lid popping off as coffee spills everywhere.

At this, Liam’s red face darkens some more, and he pushes past everyone and out of the room. “I have to take this call anyway,” he mumbles, and once he is around the corner and hopefully out of earshot, the room bursts out laughing—even Belle.

_Yeah,_ Emma thinks, looking around the room at Killian and his friends— _her_ friends— _everything is going to be just fine._


	15. Chapter Fourteen: Killian

“Wake up, little brother!” Liam announces, pushing his way into the hospital room. Killian stirs on the bed, groaning as the sun hits his face when he rolls onto his back. “You’re going home today!”

“’s Emma?” he mumbles, trying to hide himself in the blankets, but finds the ones given to him by the hospital are not adequate, and not for the first time. 

“We’ve been over this before. She’s meeting us at the apartment.”

Learning that he has no verbal response to this, he just groans. 

“Why couldn’t  _ we  _ meet  _ you  _ at the apartment? She’s much less a pain in the ass in the morning than you are.”

Liam sits on the edge of the bed, clapping his hand against Killian’s leg before tossing him the bag that he has slung over his shoulder. “We thought you would be ready to get out of here for the first time after being here for over two months without any arguing or complaining.”

Pulling his face away from the pillow, Killian manages to smile at his brother. “You should know better than that, brother.” 

Since Liam went in expecting the worst, he is amazed to find themselves out on the sidewalk outside of the hospital in less than half an hour, Killian finally back in jeans and a plain black tee for the first time in what feels like  _ forever _ , his new prosthetic strapped to his arm and working almost perfectly and everything that he has accumulated at the hospital is in the backpack slung over Liam’s shoulder. 

“Where’s your ride? I’m hoping you’re not expecting me to get on your bike in this condition.”

“Of course not, little brother. That’s why I brought  _ your  _ ride.”

Killin feels the groan building in his chest, dreading having to watch his brother drive the rollerskate of a car he’s had to deal with since moving to England— and then he sees the keys in Liam’s hand and the smug grin covering his face and realizes that, no, Liam’s not talking about the Renault; he’s talking about the Chevelle. And then he sees it, parked at the edge of the lot, standing out among the muted colors of the small cars surrounding it, as beautiful as the day he made it his own. 

And now he had to watch his brother drive it. 

“How long have you been taking out my most prized possession without my permission?”

Liam begins to lead him across the parking lot, a quick chuckle escaping his lips. “First of all, do not go around accusing me of such things, because I can assure you that I have done nothing but take care of this glorious piece of machinery since you gave her to me.”

“And second?”

“Second is I thought you would appreciate some normalcy after all you’ve been through, little brother.”

“ _ Younger brother _ ,” Killian corrects under his breath, and Liam gently hits his shoulder with his own before Killian turns to him. “And thank you, Liam.”

“Of course,” he replies, a smile flashing across his face. “Now let’s get you home.”

\---

If Killian were to say that he is surprised by the collection of people in the living room of the apartment, then he would be lying. In fact, it’s actually a smaller fiasco than he was expecting, for which he feels like he has Emma to thank. Hers is the first face he sees, the first on the other side of the door once Liam swings it open, and he takes her into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair. 

“Welcome home, Killian,” she whispers, smiling up at him quickly before he is bombarded with the others in the apartment: Ruby, Elsa and Mulan, Robin with his arm around the dark-haired bartender from their usual bar, Jeff, Will (who apologizes profusely for the way he acted in the hospital and is the first person to make a reference— to the Terminator, even though it’s incredibly inaccurate). Killian hugs them all, one by one, as his brother carries his backpack to his bedroom. After briefly chatting with those gathered in the living room, Killian wraps his arm around Emma’s waist, suddenly overcome with a rush of feeling, letting his fingers brush over the skin between the waistband of her jeans and the bottom of her tee shirt, his eyes set on her face, even as she looks over the room before them. 

After a moment, she turns to face him, her green eyes flashing with…  _ something  _ when they meet his. “What?”

He wants to tell her, standing in the living room of their apartment in front of all of his friends, perhaps more than he ever has, that he loves her, perhaps show her. It may be the fact that he’s survived his accident, gotten through his weeks in the hospital and is finally home, finally has her back in his arms and able to do something other than hold her to him in his hospital bed. 

All of the pain meds he’s on must be doing something to his head, because he almost, in this moment, asks her to marry him. For once, though, he’s thankful for his brother’s uncanny ability to butt in at the worst times, striding across the room towards them and clapping his hand against Killian’s shoulder. 

“Brother, there’s something in the kitchen that requires your attention.” 

“Is everything alright?” Killian turns between his brother and his Swan, searching either of them for an answer, but they both just smile at him. 

“I can assure you, Killian, everything is perfectly fine.”

Accepting this answer, he unwinds his arm from around Emma’s waist, instead entwining his fingers with hers, and together they follow Liam into the kitchen. They see Belle first, who leans back in her chair and smiles at the three of them, her hands wrapped around one of the apartment mugs. She meets Liam’s eyes last, a soft blush taking over her face, and Killian opens his mouth to say something before taking one last step to stand next to his brother, but before he can even formulate his snarky comment in his head, he turns to the woman sitting across the table from Belle, who has just come into view, and feels all the air leave his lungs. 

Because there, in his apartment, sitting across from his department chair and mentor right here in England, with her very own mug held between her very own hands, is his mother. He shares the briefest of glances with Emma, who is beaming next to him, and with Liam (who honestly looks like he holding back tears, though he would die before admitting it to anyone), before crossing the room and wrapping his mother in a hug. 

“Mam, what are you doing here?” he asks, possibly holding back tears of his own, and he lets her go just enough to take a good look at her face, making sure that she is actually there in front of him. She looks the same as he remembers, even though it’s been quite a few years since he moved to England to be with his brother, and even longer since she and Brennan left him in New York to move back down to the Carolinas for his newest restaurant at the time. 

But she’s here, tanner and more wrinkled than he remembers, but still just as beautiful as ever. “Liam called me, a few days after the accident. Told me all about what happened, and I almost packed everything up and came here right away. But Liam talked me out of it, because he didn’t know when you would be awake. I told your father all of this, told him to be ready for when you finally wake up, because when you do, we’re going to England. And he—he didn’t. He didn’t  _ care _ . I tried not to worry about it, and it took everything in me not to bring it up for all those weeks when you were still in the coma. And then Liam called me again, the day you woke up, and I told your father that I was coming to England to see my boys for the first time in years. And he—he told me that if I went to England, then I didn’t have to worry about coming back.” Killian hears the choke in her voice, a sound that he wishes he did not recognize from his childhood, and pulls her back to him again, burying her face in his chest. She takes a few deep breaths, his hand rising and falling with her shoulders, before pushing herself away from him enough to finish her story. “So, I packed up everything I needed into a suitcase and got on the plane. He and I have been having some issues for a few years anyway, since we moved to New York, really, and this was just the last straw that I needed.”

“So where are you staying?”

“For now, with me,” Liam says, standing beside the two of them in the kitchen, one hand on each of their backs. 

“I have enough saved up for a while, though, so it shouldn’t be too long.”

Liam presses a kiss to his mother’s cheek. “I assure you, mam, it’s not a problem at all. I’ve missed the hell out of you, so to have to share an apartment with you for a while is far from a problem.” 

Alice looks up at her boys, nothing but love in her bright blue eyes, even with the story she just recalled to them barely off her lips. “What did I ever do to deserve the two of you?”

Killian smiles down at her, amazed that he is lucky enough to get both of the women who hold his heart back in his life in so short a time. “Hell, woman, all you had to do was be a mother, and you decided to be the best one in the world.”

\---

After an hour, everything calms down. Killian still has the rest of the week before he can go back to class, but that doesn’t stop anyone else from needing to return to their regular schedules—all except Emma, who asked specifically for the rest of the day off to help Killian adjust back to normal life, which of course Belle granted her. 

Which is how they end up here, curled up together under a blanket on the couch, close to the same position they awoke in on  _ that  _ morning, the last time anything seemed anywhere close to normal. Emma’s eyes are on the TV, watching Captain America without really  _ watching it _ . But he is far too distracted by her to pay any attention to the movie whatsoever, instead focused on every inch of her that he can feel: the skin of her lower back under his fingers, tucked up under the back of her shirt: the rise and fall of her breath against his chest. Tilting his head to see her face, he takes in every detail of her that he can see, the past few months a reminder to never take anything for granted. 

_ By god _ , he loves her. He’s known that for a while—for a  _ very long time _ —but laying here, feeling the realness of her against him, being able to hold her somewhere that’s not a hospital bed, just makes the feeling that much more important to him. 

When she looks up at him, resting her chin against the flat of his chest, he feels his breath stop in his chest, and he can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face. 

“You’re bloody perfect, d’you know that?” His voice is soft, barely a whisper, but somehow still entirely sincere. 

His prosthetic, which was curled up around the back of his head, comes around to cup her face, running the thumb over her cheek. It’s a weird feeling for the both of them, but one that they’re getting more comfortable with.

She can sense it welling in her chest before she even tries to put it into words, the overwhelming flood of  _ feeling _ that rushes through her when he smiles down at her, like she is the only thing in the world that he ever wants to look at. 

Because she is. 

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” she says, then begins pressing kisses anywhere she can reach: the soft fabric of the tee covering his chest, the prickles of the stubble growing against his chin.

“Aye, love, as am I.” He is ready to monologue, to tell her that he wants to spend every  _ moment  _ of the rest of his life with her, that there is nowhere he would rather be than here with her, but every single one of these thoughts is stopped with the feeling of her lips against the side of his neck, just under his ear. 

Instead of the grand proclamations that fill his head, the only noise that escapes Killian’s lips is a low groan from somewhere deep in his chest. “Bloody hell, woman,” he growls, knowing that her kissing that particular spot is far from a mistake. They have been together long enough, and enough times, for her to know exactly what she is doing. 

He feels her laugh against his skin, her teeth nipping at the skin below his earlobe. 

“God, I missed you,” she whispers, shifting her body on top of his to find his lips with hers.

He just hums in response, wrapping his prosthetic hand around her head while using his other to anchor her hips into his own. 

Unlike before, when she stopped the words in his chest, now they come, as the prosthetic hand cups her face again and he stares down at her. “I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am to have you back in my arms, Swan. Leaving you behind was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and not a moment has passed since I first met you that I have not stopped thinking about you.”

“Good,” she whispers again, finding his lips with her own once more. “And now, finally, we can try to get back to normal.”


	16. Chapter 15: Emma

Getting him back on his feet proves to be more difficult than any of them ever thought it would be. It's not that Killian doesn't want his life to be back to normal— in fact, most of their problems stem from him being perhaps  _ too _ enthusiastic about returning to normal. Per Dr. Whale’s recommendations, he is spending no more than half an hour at a time on work, stopping for at least hour-long breaks before returning, sleeping on a more defined schedule than he's ever had and not driving himself anywhere.

And it's driving him mad, Emma can tell.

But none of these things are the problem. The problem is the amount of work that has accrued itself since the day he was taken to the hospital overwhelming him to no end.

Literally. It feels like it is never going to end.

He's been back for a week, having gone to all three of his classes with Emma beside him taking notes and making sure he’s feeling okay. Which brings them to Thursday night, Killian sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, Emma behind him, running her hands down his back. 

The room is quiet. It's been quiet for a few minutes now, since Killian slammed his copy of  _ Hamlet  _ shut and threw it on the floor in anger. Emma can tell that he is upset: his back is tight, his jaw clenching and unclenching from where Emma can see his profile. He keeps running his fingers through his hair, pushing it up off his head before flattening it again, and his breaths are labored, hard enough to move his whole back under Emma's hands. 

“I don't know if I can do this.” 

Even as a hushed whisper, Killian's voice still startles her. He sounds small, worried—  _ helpless _ , Emma can't stop herself from thinking. 

She wants to respond, wants to assure him that he'll be fine, that he can get through it, but all of her words are stuck in her chest. 

As much as she wants them to, the words don’t just come out. 

Her hands are still on his back, feeling the muscles spasm under her fingers.

"Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathes, suddenly taken aback by his outburst, and it finally startles the breath out of her that was stuck in her chest. In a single movement, he is up off the bed and across the room. She wants to move to him, cross the room to stand beside him, to comfort him, but she is still stuck.

Especially when he turns around, the fire in his eyes blazing a hole right through her soul. Again, she is rendered speechless.

"You don't know if can do this either, do you?"

She holds eye contact with him for another moment until it is too much for her, and she drops her gaze to the floor.

His hands, which he had crossed over his chest, suddenly fly to his hair, his fingers carding through the strands there and his prosthetic clamped on the back of his neck.

"Killian," she manages, her voice hoarse in the back of her throat, but She can say nothing else, though she does try to meet his eyes again.

"Tell me you think I can do it, Emma."

Slowly, she swallows, trying to wet her throat enough to reply, but she can still get nothing to come out.

"Emma," he pleads, but neither of them move a muscle, eyes locked in an intense stare. She can feel her eyes watering, can't stop the quivering of her lip, but can still not bring herself to respond. "Please.”

But when she still can’t say anything, he turns away from her, facing the window, completely silent for a few terribly long moments.

"Just go," he says. Emma stands up slowly but moves no further than that. When he realizes this, he continues, "Please, just—leave me alone for a while."

Finally, she regains control of her own body, staring at him for another moment before catching the tear that slides down her cheek and turning towards the door.

"I'm sorry," she mouths, but honestly has no idea whether any sound has come out, then walks to the door and lets herself out. Pausing there for a moment, she leans her back against the wall, turning her eyes up towards the ceiling. She stops a few more tears from falling with the palms of her hands, letting out along, shaky breath.

"Shit."

She takes another breath, somehow suddenly able to breathe in the air of the living room even though she couldn't manage in Killian's bedroom.

Returning to her room doesn't seem line the right thing to do—she's spent so much time in Kilian's lately that she fears the silence of her own room might just drive her insane. So she does the next best thing, and makes her way to the kitchen. Her backpack is sitting on the couch as she passes it, and after a moment of thought, she hoists it over her shoulder to bring it with her to the kitchen.

Busying herself as much as she can, she fills a mug with milk and places it in the microwave, trying to focus on anything but how much she knows she just hurt Killian. Which is how she ends up two hours later, on her third cup of hot chocolate with a dozen critical essays on modernized Shakespeare stories spread out across the table in front of her. 

Two hours later, when August returns home from his Thursday night bartending shift.

When August walks through the door and realizes she is there, he stops for a moment in the doorway, dumbstruck by her presence there.

"Hello, Emma," he says, completely taken aback, but not as much as Emma seems to be, noticeably jumping when he speaks. 

He can’t help but chuckle at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just thrown off by your being awake and… in the kitchen.”

Running her fingers across the hair on the top of her head, catching the pieces that have fallen out of her braid, she sits up straight for what feels like the first time in days. 

_ Fuck,  _ it just well might be. 

“Sorry, it’s just been a hell of a…” 

She goes to say day, then realizes that it’s been a hell of a couple weeks… a few months, at least. 

Her whole damn life has been a “hell of a…” ever since she got off the plane to England. 

Instead of finishing her sentence, she simply lets out a long sigh, resting her head on her forearms, crossed on the table in front of her. 

August laughs softly at her again, and she snaps her eyes up to his.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, I just— “

But the sound of Emma’s laugh stops whatever the rest of his sentence was going to be. 

“Everything is just a fucking mess around me, isn’t it?”

August walks over to the fridge and pulls out two bottles of beer, twisting the lid off one before handing it to her.

For a moment, she just stares at it, as if she doesn't quite understand why he is giving it to her; and then, in a flash, it all disappears, wrapping her fingers around the bottle and smiling softly at him. 

A moment's silence passes between them, Emma's eyes set on the label of the bottle until she overcomes the awkwardness that sits in the air between them. She hasn't forgotten the date they went on just a few weeks ago, even though the weeks feel as if they had spread into years.

And she hasn't forgotten that the two of them have barely shared more than a few words since the night August told her that Killian had feelings for her.

August certainly hasn't forgotten. But he also knows that Emma has since been through hell and back, stressed in ways that he can't even begin to imagine. So, as much as he wants to make sure that she is going to be okay, he is definitely not going to push her.

He watches as she turns the page on one of the essays sitting in front of her, taking another swig of her beer before turning his attention towards the notifications that have collected on his phone during his shift.

A few minutes pass in silence, Emma focused on her homework while August scrolls on his phone, and he in completely surprised by her sudden movement as she sets her beer bottle on the table in front of her, her eyes shooting up to meet his.

"I'm sorry," she says.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Emma. I had made my decision to back off as soon as I learned that you were the girl Killian has never stopped talking about. I respect both of you too much to continue to fight for you knowing full well that you’ve had his heart since he was fifteen. Plus, I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I could never compete with that.”

She just smiles. 

“I can't even begin to imagine how hard this all must have been on Killian, not to mention on you. He's been out for a few weeks, but you've just had to keep working through all of this.” So she tells him what she's been doing, working less hours from the office and more from the hospital room, the desk that they had set up for her and Liam to use so they could be there with him. 

“And what is going on down here?” Ruby asks, coming down the stairs from her bedroom in a tank top and bright red pajama shorts. 

“Killian and I got in a fight, so I came out here a few hours ago to get some writing done, and August came home from work and joined me.” At Emma’s confession, August turns his stare back to her, eyes wide. 

“You—got in a fight?” 

But Emma ignores his question, keeping her eyes on Ruby. As much as her statement threw off August, she has no idea what caused her to say it, and so it threw her off even more. “What are you even doing up, Rubes? It’s after midnight.”

“You know I’m drawn to drama, Emma.”

“There’s nothing dramatic going on down here. Just two friends drinking beer after midnight on a Thursday night.”

Ruby puts her hands up in defeat, surrendering to Emma’s argument. “Fine, fine,” she concedes, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer for herself, plus two more for Emma and August. The room is silent as Ruby sits down at the table between them, August’s attention going back to his cell phone as Emma props her head up on her fist and turns back to the pages spread out in front of her. Ruby looks back and forth between them before issuing a long sigh, which draws August’s eyes up to her for just a moment, rolling them before turning back to his screen. When neither of them give her the attention she wants, she reaches out towards Emma’s pile of papers and takes the one off the top, beginning to read it as she takes a few large gulps of her beer. 

After turning to the second page, Ruby sets the papers back down on the table. 

“So, there’s only three weeks left, huh? Really cruncing your papers down to the wire then, huh, Emma?”

It takes a moment for Emma to realize that Ruby was talking to her, but when she does, she sets her work back down on the table, capping the pen she was tapping against her front teeth. 

“What?”

“It’s week twelve, and you’re still combing through your primary sources for your papers. That seems a little close for comfort, don’t you think?”

“Ruby, I spent nine weeks working at a desk at the hospital because my boyfriend got in a snowmobile accident, and you think I haven’t realized how behind on my work I’ve gotten. Believe it or not, Lucas, I don’t need you reminding me just how stressed out I am.”

As she’s saying the words, she realizes that she has no idea where they are coming from. Yes, she’s stressed, and yes, she’s falling behind—but it’s not Ruby’s fault. 

No one says anything. 

Ruby takes another sip of her beer. 

Once again, Emma rests her head on her forearms, crossed in front of her over the papers strewn across the table. After a few terribly long moments, she sits back up, using the palms of her hand to wipe off the tears that have fallen down her cheeks, hopefully fast enough that neither Ruby or August notice them. 

It doesn’t work. 

“I’m sorry, Rubes,” she whispers, reaching across the table to rest her hand on Ruby’s arm. “I’m just—” 

Ruby stops her words by covering Emma’s hand with her own, which Emma is thankful for, because she had no idea what she was going to say. 

“I know, darling. You’re allowed to be stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Ruby’s words pull a laugh deep out of Emma’s stomach, coming up in loud, gasping chuckles. “Well, I am all of those things.” But as soon as she says this, her laughter turns into deep sobs, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know what to do.” She drops her head again, quickly feeling Ruby’s arm on her back, but it takes a few more moments for her to feel a second hand on her back, much bigger than Ruby’s long, thin fingers: August. 

And it’s his voice she hears: “We’re here to help you, Emma. If there’s anything we can do for either of you, just let us know.”

She thinks she may have mumbled some sort of response—but maybe it was Ruby?— before she falls asleep on the kitchen table, passed out deep enough that August and Ruby move her to her bedroom without waking her a few minutes later.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm sorry this chapter took so long. There's only four weeks left of the semester, and I'm hoping to have this finished by the time spring semester starts in January. Just a few chapters left! Thank you all for sticking around this long!!


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Killian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finals week, guys! (Or, will officially be in one hour.) All of my readers are the best for having so much patience with me and this story, and all I can say is, we're almost there. Here's a shorter, happier chapter-- enjoy!

Killian hates this. He hates having to pretend he is okay, pretend that he's not in incredible amounts of pain, not continually pretending  _ not  _ to notice the way people react to his hand. Spending the last week back in his classes, trying to get back to normal, while all the while pretending that he’s completely alright with everything is the hardest thing he has ever needed to do. And he hates every moment of it. 

All that he wanted from her was assurance that someone believes in him, because he sure as hell doesn’t believe in himself right now. 

It’s been 45 minutes since he kicked her out of his bedroom, yelled at her for not lying to him and hurting her more than he ever imagined he would do. He wants to follow after her, find her in her bedroom or in the living room or wherever she planted herself after he asked her to leave. But no matter how much he tells himself to  _ do it _ , to push himself up off his head, take his eyes away from the ceiling and go find her, apologize to her and tell her that she means everything to him—but he  _ can’t _ . 

All he can do is reach up next to his head from where he tossed his cell phone, finding Emma’s name and clicking on it. More than anything, he hopes that she is asleep, because she desperately needs it. 

_ I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.  _

He presses send before his mind tells him not to, but quickly types another message and sends it, as well: 

_ Sleep well, love. I’ll talk to you in the morning.  _

But then, he feels the vibrations from under the pillow behind him, which he reaches up to reveal her phone, left right where she put it down earlier that night. 

_ Well, shit, there goes that plan.  _

Unplugging his phone, he slides the charger into hers and lays it on his bedside table. All he can do now is the one thing he’s struggled the most with since he woke up in the hospital: sleep. 

For once, it comes quickly, taking over him before he can even begin to stress over the shittiness that caught up with him today.  

  
  


When he wakes up, he can sense something is off. He doesn’t immediately know what, until he rolls over to press a kiss to Emma’s forehead and see if she agrees, only to find her normal half of the bed empty. 

Not just empty.  _ Cold _ .

It all comes back to him, a shock of ice down his spine. Their fight, the awful way he yelled at her. Telling her to leave him alone. God, if only he could take it all back. 

A buzz next to his head pulls him back to reality, and he reaches for it with the stump of his arm, something he’s been finding himself doing more regularly, the only time he takes it off being going to bed and getting a shower. But the phone on the nightstand is not his, but Emma’s, and upon realizing this, he runs his hand over his face, wishing he could somehow pull the stress out of his head and toss it on the ground, stomping on it with the ferocity he feels he treated Emma with the night before. 

He needs to apologize. 

He needs to do more than that. He needs to  _ beg  _ for her apologies, ask her forgiveness, and make it up to her. In every single way he knows how. 

And there’s no better time to start than the present. 

So, pulling himself out of bed, he straps his prosthetic back into place, slides his pajama pants over his legs, and leaves his bedroom, needing to come up with some idea as to how he should apologize to her. Part of him is hoping that she is already awake and out of her bedroom, lounging on the couch or leaning over her work at the table; but when he cannot find her, he realizes that she possibly needs sleep more than he does, and that it would be best to just leave her alone, at least until she wants to talk to him again. 

If she ever wants to talk to him again. 

So, instead, he is hoping for the second-best thing: someone helpful that he can talk out this whole godawful situation with, possibly someone who will lead his thoughts in the right direction and tell him what to do. 

Instead, he finds August, a cup of coffee in one hand while he uses the other to fill in the answers for the crossword puzzle in the newspaper that somebody left laying on the table. 

“Good morning,” Killian says, as chipper as he can be, but he was already on weird terms with August  _ before  _ the bad mood of the morning took over. 

“Hey,” is all he says back, and Killian can see him take a sip out of his mug as Killian pulls one of his own from the cabinet. He switches on the electric kettle— a new addition to their kitchen— and places one of his tea bags in the mug, leaning back against the counter as he runs his fingers through his hair. 

Without taking his eyes off the newspaper in front of him, August takes another small sip from the mug and then asks, “Have you talked to Emma yet?” His voice is quiet, almost as if he was afraid to ask, or ashamed. 

_ But how did he know? _

“I’m assuming she’s still asleep,” is all he says. 

“Well, she was out here with me for a while last night,” he replies, finally raising his eyes to meet Killian's, but only for a moment. 

“You talked to her last night? I thought you were working last night?”

“Yeah, she was sitting out here with the sources for one of her papers when I got home, and we sat and talked for a while. Ruby, too.”

_ Well, that explains it.  _

“She’s worried about you, you know.”

Killian can’t help but laugh at this, a single bark of a laugh that comes out as a puff of air, and he shakes his head. “Of course she’s bloody worried about me, mate. I almost died.”

August meets Killian’s eyes again, his cheeks slowly turning red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just— “

But Killian stops him before he can continue. “No, no, I should be the one apologizing. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and apparently, I’ve started short-circuiting around people I care about. But I’m assuming she told you about that?”

“Just that there was a fight. She didn’t add any details, and I didn’t ask. Though I think Ruby may have tried to pry.”

Shaking his head, Killian chuckles at this, just as the pot next to him starts to whistle. “Of course she did.”

A few moments pass between them, Killian pouring the water over the tea bag and letting it steep as August fills in a few more boxes on the crossword. Neither of them speaks again, until Killian has added his cream and sits down across the table from him. 

“How are your projects going, then?” August asks finally. 

Sighing, Killian takes a careful sip of his tea. “They’d be going a lot better if I hadn’t spent most of the semester in the hospital, I would assume.”

Now it’s August’s turn to let out a soft laugh. “I assume that was just about the stupidest thing I could have asked.”

“Possibly.”

“What’re you going to do, though? Have you come up with any ideas?”

Wrapping his prosthetic hand around the mug, he uses his other arm to prop his head up against the table, resting his chin against the fist. “Honestly, I think the best thing to do is drop, for medical reasons. If what Liam’s trying to tell me is right, then I should just be able to drop all three of the courses, but come back next semester as if nothing happened. I was hoping to talk to Emma about it today, see if she would like to come with me to meet with Belle and talk about my options.”

He nods, finishing the rest of his coffee in a quick mouthful. “Well, you know I wish you the best. If there’s anything we can do to help, you know any of us would in a heartbeat.”

And, of course, Killian knows it’s true. 

“Thanks, mate.” He smiles softly across the table at August, who returns it before pushing himself up and leaving him there.

 

After finishing his cup of tea with no further movement in the house, Killian doesn’t know what to do. More than anything, he wants to wake up Emma, plead with her for forgiveness, show her that he would do anything to assure her that he didn’t mean a damn word of anything that happened the night before. 

But Emma is just as tired as he is, just as stressed and exhausted, so he does something else instead: returning back to his room for his cell phone, he sits down at his desk and calls the one person he wants to talk to just as much as Emma— his mother.

She, however, is on her way to the cafe down the street to her apartment to have brunch with some of her new girlfriends, so she can’t chat for very long; instead, they decide to meet for dinner that night at this “cute little bistro” that she’s found, and  _ can he bring Emma? _

“Of course, mum. I’ll see you tonight. Love you.”

And then, just like that, he is alone again. For a few minutes, he scrolls mindlessly through Instagram, seeing the posts without really  _ reading  _ them, his mind set on all of the awful things he said to Emma the night before. So, when there is a soft knock on the door behind him, it startles him, quickly pulling him out of his own mind to find the object of all his thoughts standing on the other side of the door. 

With her eyes set to the floor between them, her words are soft. “I saw your mug in the sink and it was still warm so I figured you were awake, I hope that’s okay,” she says, but as soon as she raises her face up to meet his eyes, he fills the short space between them, wrapping his arms around her as she nuzzles her face into the warmth of his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his lips pressed against the top of her head. “I’m so, so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you, I just— “

Pulling back, but with her arms still wrung around his neck, she stops his words by softly pressing her lips to his. “You have nothing to apologize for. You’re stressed. We’re all stressed, everyone in this apartment, everyone in this town.”

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

She kisses him again, not as gentle as the first one, and smiles against his lips. “Don’t make me sleep by myself ever again?” she asks, and he nods vigorously, pulling both of them further into his bedroom and closing the door behind them. 

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Come find me on tumblr and tell me how you feel! @thejollyroger-writer


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